PBS: inflation 9.6% in October 2026, house rent up 5.58% urban and 6.69% rural on a year earlier

PBS's October 2026 price review puts headline inflation at 9.6% and house rent inflation at 5.58% in urban areas and 6.69% in rural areas, year on year.

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) says consumer price inflation was 9.6% year on year in October 2026, and that its house rent index was 5.58% higher than a year earlier in urban areas and 6.69% higher in rural areas. The figures are in PBS’s Monthly Review on Price Indices for October 2026, whose release page is dated 2 November 2026. We read its summary and the house rent tables on 3 November.

What PBS reports

Headline inflation. CPI (general) rose 9.6% on a year earlier in October 2026, compared with 10.3% in September 2026 and 6.2% in October 2025. On the month, PBS gives a rise of 1.1%.
Urban and rural CPI. PBS puts urban CPI at 9.5% and rural CPI at 9.8% year on year.
House rent, urban. The index stood at 185.29 in October 2026, against 183.56 in September 2026 and 175.49 in October 2025. That is a rise of 0.94% on the month and 5.58% on the year.
House rent, rural. The index stood at 196.76, against 195.20 in September 2026 and 184.43 in October 2025. That is a rise of 0.80% on the month and 6.69% on the year.

PBS lists house rent among the non-food items that increased on the month, at 0.94%.

What the figures do not tell you

Not market rents. These are PBS’s CPI house rent indices for urban and rural areas. They are not market rents, asking rents or what a new tenant would pay today.
Not property prices. The index does not measure the price of buying a house, plot or flat.
Not a city figure. PBS’s urban and rural series are national. They do not show rents in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad or any other city.
Not an explanation. The review does not give a reason for the monthly change in rent. PBS’s September review gave 6.12% for urban rent and 7.78% for rural rent year on year, with an urban index of 183.56 and a rural index of 195.20. In that review both indices were the same as in August, a change of 0.00% on the month. The October review shows lower year-on-year figures than September’s for both urban and rural rent. We do not explain the difference, because the review does not.

Where this sits on our site

We show PBS’s headline CPI and house rent figures, with their dates, on our data page. For how to read figures like these, see our guide to reading Pakistan property market data. For the interest rate side, see our report on the State Bank of Pakistan raising its policy rate to 12 percent.

Readers who track rents may wish to compare the PBS index with their own lease terms, and to treat any single month with care. We will update our data page when PBS publishes its next review.