The economic fallout from the regional conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz triggered a frantic rally in oil prices, creating a significant pass-through effect, driving up costs across oil-dependent sectors. In details, and according to the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS), Lebanon’s consumer price index increased by 4.91% month-on-month in March 2026 (highest monthly increase since the month of October 2023) compared to a monthly increase of 1.90% in February. On an annual basis, Lebanon’s CPI rallied by 17.26% to 8,464.31 in March 2026, compared to 7,218.28 in March 2025, with the average annual inflation rate for the first three months of the year 2026 attaining 13.49%. The decelerating inflation pace since 2023 owes to the widespread dollarization of products & services coupled with the stability of the LBP/USD exchange rate since the month of July 2023. In details, the index portrays a 19.41% y-o-y increase in the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (20.0% weight in the index), an 18.61% hike in housing prices (owner occupied; 13.6% weight in the index), a 24.81% rise in transportation prices (13.1% weight in the index) owing to the aforementioned increase in oil prices, some 22.16% rise in the price of housing – water, electricity, gas & other fuels (11.8% weight in the index), not to mention some 2.15% rise in healthcare prices (7.7% weight in the index), and a 35.67% rally in education prices (6.6% weight in the index). It is worth noting clothing & footwear prices (5.2% weight in the index) rose by 2.39% y-o-y in March 2026 and were accompanied by an 11.34% annual hike in restaurants & hotels prices (2.8% weight in the index), and some 42.66% increase in the prices of recreation, amusement and culture (2.4% weight in the index). Communication (4.5% weight in the index), on the other hand, was the only component of the CPI to have witnessed an annual drop (1.63%) in prices in March. The following section captures the fluctuation in the key constituents of Lebanon’s consumer basket:

On a geographical basis, all regions across Lebanon saw a monthly rise in their CPI values in March 2026, with the sharpest increase taking place in Nabatieh (7.78%) followed by the Bekaa & the North (6.04%) and the South (5.33%), the Mount Lebanon (4.30%), and Beirut (2.88%) regions.