Malaga records highest price increase in Spain in February

Cristina Vallejo

Friday, 14 March 2025, 18:02

Malaga and Guipúzcoa (the Basque Country) are the two provinces that recorded the highest increase in prices in Spain during February, according to data published by the national institute of statistics (INE). In both places, the CPI (consumer price index) increased by 3.7% compared to 2024. Moreover, these are two of the 15 Spanish provinces in which inflation rose by more than the national average of 3%.

To compare the increase in Malaga in particular, the current CPI stands between the figures from January 2025 and January 2024, with 3.5% and 3.8%, respectively.

Inflation in Spain as a whole was 3% in February and 2.9% in January. The last time the February figure was surpassed was in June 2024 (3.4%).

Malaga's economists association has highlighted the province's resistance to an inflation decrease. Among the contributing factors are the economic dynamism, which favours a very active demand and causes prices to grow at a faster rate.

The lowest inflation in Spain at the moment is recorded in the two provinces on the Canary Islands - Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas, with 2% and 2.3% respectively, followed by Murcia, Teruel, Pontevedra, Palencia, Zamora, Toledo, Seville and Almería, with year-on-year price increases of no more than 2.5%.

If we look at which products and services see the highest price increase, for Malaga those would be domestic expenses: water, electricity or gas, with an increase of 14.6%, compared to the 9.8% recorded at national level. This sharp rise is attributed to the increase of electricity and water rates in 2025.

Meanwhile, restaurant and hotel prices grew by 5.4% year-on-year (compared with 4.1% in Spain as a whole). Leisure and culture rose by 3.6% in the province and 1.4% in the country, while clothing and footwear grew by 3.1% in Malaga contrasted with the 0.1% in Spain.

One type of expenditure has risen less in Malaga than in Spain and that is groceries. The national average stands at 2.2%, while Malaga recorded a rise from 0.8% to 1.2% in February. The most recent record in the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages in the province was in August 2024 (2.1%), after which the figure has stayed below 1%.

Transport is the sector that has seen the lowest inflation, rising by 0.1% year-on-year in the province, compared to 0.3% national average. This can be attributed to smaller increase in the price of fuel in 2025.