South Africa’s latest Сost of Living Report highlights persistent affordability pressures despite easing inflation.
On April 1, the Competition Commission of South Africsa released the second Cost of Living (COL) Report which shows how prices for basic goods and services have changed since 2020, and what this means for household budgets.
This analysis is based on publicly available information. It is not meant to draw conclusions about wrongdoing by any company. It helps the Commission understand how prices move through the value chain and where the gap is widening or narrowing.
The COL Report builds on the Commission’s Essential Food Price Monitoring, launched in July 2020 to track selected staple-food prices from farm to retail. The monitoring programme has since expanded beyond food, and the COL Report now covers essential non-food items such as electricity, water, housing, healthcare, transport, education and communication services while also assessing how interest rates affect affordability.
The COL Report provides insight into the affordability of basic goods and services, especially for low-income households. Using Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from Statistics South Africa from 2020 to January 2026, the COL Report tracks price trends and shows that many essentials remain expensive even as inflation eases. It also looks at regulated prices, such as electricity and water, because they place a heavy burden on vulnerable consumers.
• From 2020 to January 2026, electricity prices rose by about 85% and water prices by about 68%, significantly above overall inflation which increased by 30% over the same period. The persistence of these increases reflects deeper structural challenges within the utility sector, including ageing infrastructure, high debt burdens, operational inefficiencies, and the need for ongoing capital investment.
• Primary healthcare (general practitioners): GP consultation costs have risen faster than overall inflation and remain high in 2026. GP tariff increases in 2026 are expected to be broadly in line with medical inflation of about 4.2%.
• Between April 2025 and January 2026, petrol prices stabilised after sharp swings in earlier years. Prices fell in 2025 and were broadly steady in January 2026. Taxi fares moved in line with petrol, and the gap between taxi fares and overall inflation narrowed. The Commission notes, however, that renewed instability in the Middle East has pushed oil prices higher. This is already putting upward pressure on fuel and transport costs from April. Higher fuel costs can also feed through to the prices of other goods, including food.
• From 2020 to January 2026, primary education costs rose by 37% and secondary education costs rose by 42%, both above headline inflation. This is largely due to increasing operational costs which are not sufficiently covered by government funding.
The COL Report also looks at the gap between what producers receive and what consumers pay for selected foods, including canned pilchards, eggs, individually quick frozen (IQF) chicken, sunflower oil and maize meal. In this report, the “spread” is the percentage difference between the producer price and the retail price. The Commission analyses spreads to see how price changes move through the value chain and where the gap is widening or narrowing. A widening spread can suggest opportunistic “rocket and feather” pricing, where processors or retailers raise prices quickly when costs rise but reduce them slowly when costs fall.
The outlook for essential food prices remains mixed. In some markets, such as canned pilchards and brown bread, margins narrowed at times and price increases were more in line with changes in costs. In other staples, retail prices stayed high even when upstream costs were stable or falling. This is most visible in eggs, IQF chicken, sunflower oil and maize meal. It may mean many consumers, especially low-income households, do not benefit quickly from lower input costs. The Commission will continue to monitor these
trends to support food affordability and food security.
• Eggs: In mid-2025, producer prices fell, but retail prices fell slowly. This suggests that price
decreases were not passed on to consumers right away.
• IQF chicken: Producer prices were broadly stable at about R45, but retail prices increased from about R96.38 to R101.56 per 1.5kg between June and December 2025.
• Maize meal: The farm value of white maize fell from R22.16 in May 2025 to R14.49 per 2.5kg in December 2025. Producer prices for maize meal did not fall by the same extent, and retail prices remained high. The producer-to-retail spread was 37% in November 2025.
• Sunflower oil: Retail prices were often slow to reflect changes in underlying costs. Retail prices tend to react to increases in costs. However, they do not appear to fall when costs decrease. This price stickiness is a concern.
Each edition of the COL Report includes a “deep dive” into one key cost driver. In this edition, the focus is on electricity tariffs. Electricity is a direct household expense and a major cost for businesses. When tariffs rise, they put pressure on household budgets and can push up prices across the economy, including food and transport. The report finds that pricing approaches that add costs on top of costs, including at municipal level, can contribute to prices staying high and tariffs rising over time. Recent reforms, including the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act, are important for the long term and for improving supply. However, under the current pricing system they may not translate into quick relief for households.
“Addressing the cost of living requires greater scrutiny of administered price-setting mechanisms, enhanced transparency and accountability in tariff determinations and targeted protection for vulnerable households” said Commissioner Doris Tshepe. ”Without deliberate attention to how essential service prices are formed and transmitted through the economy, cost pressures are likely to remain entrenched, limiting gains in household welfare and slowing broader economic recovery.”
