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 3.04% month-on-month in April 2026 compared to a monthly increase of 4.91% in March (highest monthly increase since the month of October 2023). On an annual basis, Lebanon’s CPI rallied by 20.02% to 8,721.39 in April 2026, compared to 7,266.36 in April 2025, with the average annual inflation rate for the first four months of the year 2026 attaining 15.14%. The decelerating inflation pace since 2023 and until end of year 2025 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 17.97% y-o-y increase in the prices of food & non-alcoholic beverages (20.0% weight in the index), a 16.18% hike in housing prices (owner occupied; 13.6% weight in the index), a 33.27% rise in transportation prices (13.1% weight in the index) owing to the aforementioned increase in oil prices, some 41.39% rise in the price of housing – water, electricity, gas & other fuels (11.8% weight in the index), not to mention some 2.16% rise in healthcare prices (7.7% weight in the index), and the 35.67% rally in education prices (6.6% weight in the index). It is worth noting that clothing & footwear prices (5.2% weight in the index) rose by 4.90% y-o-y in April 2026 and were accompanied by a 15.98% annual hike in restaurants & hotels prices (2.8% weight in the index), and some 42.24% 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 (1.43%) in prices in April. 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 April 2026, with the sharpest increase taking place in the Bekaa (5.74%) followed by Nabatieh (3.97%), South (3.72%), Mount Lebanon (2.71%), North (2.54%), and Beirut (2.02%) regions.