Your money: China
China is the world's biggest manufacturer — and its household story runs the opposite way from most of this site: there, the warning sign economists watch for is prices falling, not rising. What happens at China's factory gates reaches the rest of the world as cheaper goods, but also as weaker orders.
Latest price reading: February 2026 · latest factory-gate reading: February 2026 · recomputed automatically every night
The average monthly living costs — China
Average monthly consumption spending
Per person, national average — derived from the latest official quarterly figure (December 2025). See the derivation note below; no 2019 comparison exists for this figure.
Average monthly disposable income
Per person, national average — same derivation and quarter as spending.
China's statistics office publishes income and spending as cumulative year-to-date totals each quarter, never a monthly figure directly. This is the latest quarter's increment over the previous quarter (or the Q1 total ÷ 3, when the latest quarter is Q1) — an average monthly rate for that specific quarter, not a monthly survey reading. No 2019 comparison exists: this mirror only reaches back a few quarters.
Tax check: spending is VAT-inclusive (China's retail prices are marked and charged as one all-in figure, unlike the sales tax added separately at US checkouts). Income is China's own "disposable income" concept — by NBS's own definition, already after personal income tax and social-insurance contributions. Neither number needs any tax added or removed.
Household squeeze meter
wages keeping upFactory-gate prices are down 0.9% on a year ago (February 2026) — China's warning sign of weak demand — while consumer prices are up 1.3% (February 2026), even as per-capita income for January–December 2025 is up 5.0% on the same months a year earlier.
Consumer prices
+1.3%vs a year ago
as of February 2026
Wages
+5.0%vs a year ago
as of October 2025
Gap (prices − wages)
−3.7pp
above zero = prices pulling ahead of pay
How it's measured: Headline CPI (published by China's statistics office as % vs a year earlier) compared with growth in per-capita disposable income — cumulative year-to-date, nominal, against the same span a year earlier. Flat or falling prices are flagged separately: in China they are the warning sign of weak demand.
Price changes — by category
Browse each category's price change vs a year earlier. Remember the twist: in China, numbers near or below zero are the concern, not the high ones.
Consumer prices
+1.3%
vs a year ago
as of February 2026
Food
+1.7%
vs a year ago
as of February 2026
Factory-gate prices (PPI)
−0.9%
vs a year ago
as of February 2026
Clothing
+1.9%
vs a year ago
as of February 2026
Housing
−0.2%
vs a year ago
as of February 2026
Household goods & services
+2.8%
vs a year ago
as of February 2026
Transport & communication
−0.7%
vs a year ago
as of February 2026
Education, culture & recreation
+2.0%
vs a year ago
as of February 2026
Monthly, via the open mirror of official NBS data, which holds only ~13 recent months and lags a few months. A since-2019 comparison isn't possible from that short window, so the year-over-year change is shown instead. These are VAT-inclusive consumer prices (China's shelf prices are marked all-inclusive) — the factory-gate tile is the one exception, an ex-VAT producer price by definition.
Price trend of the tracked categories — China
This line averages the year-over-year change of the 9 consumer-price categories above, each month — a % rate, not a rebased index like the equivalent charts for Europe, Japan or India. China's mirror holds only about 13 months, too short to rebase against a 2019 average, and its category series arrive already as year-over-year percentages with no underlying price level to index. Remember the twist: here, a line sitting near or below zero is the concern, not a high one.
Why falling prices are the warning sign here
In most economies the worry is prices rising faster than pay. For China, economists watch the opposite direction: persistently falling prices — deflation — usually signal demand too weak to absorb what the world's biggest factory produces. Factories cut prices to keep orders, margins thin out, wage growth slows, and households postpone purchases because things may be cheaper later — a loop that's hard to escape.
It doesn't stay inside China. Exported deflation reaches other countries as cheaper goods on their shelves — mild good news for their shoppers — but also as weaker factory orders and price pressure on manufacturers everywhere. That's why this page watches China's factory-gate prices, not just its consumer prices.
Factory-gate prices (PPI) — change vs a year earlier
What Chinese factories charge at the gate, compared with the same month a year earlier — negative numbers mean factories are cutting prices, the clearest deflation signal there is.
Official NBS series via the DBnomics open mirror, which holds only ~13 recent months and lags a few months — an honestly short window, same as this site's other China series. Monthly.
- Newest data point:
- February 2026
- Last checked:
- 29 July 2026
- Updates:
- monthly
- Confidence:
- medium
Exports — the freshest reading
Latest monthly exports (OECD mirror, ~2-month lag)
0billion US$
+20.5% vs a year earlier
as of May 2026
Deep history
The full export history back to 2015 — plus China's official factory survey — lives on the China country page. →
The OECD mirror updates monthly and runs ~2 months behind — much fresher than the deep-history mirror used on the country page (~14 months behind), which is why both exist. Values converted from million to billion US$ for readability.
Household income & spending
China publishes household figures quarterly as running totals since January ("year-to-date") — so each reading compares everything earned or spent so far this year with the same stretch of last year, not one quarter against another.
Disposable income per person
+5.0%vs same period last year
Consumption spending per person
+4.4%vs same period last year
Income by source — yuan per person, year-to-date
Wages & salaries
24,555yuan
+5.3% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Business income
7252yuan
+5.0% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Property income
3490yuan
+1.6% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Transfer income (pensions, benefits)
8080yuan
+5.7% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Spending by category — yuan per person, year-to-date
Food & tobacco
8631yuan
+2.6% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Clothing
1554yuan
+2.2% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Housing
6397yuan
+2.1% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Household goods & services
1667yuan
+7.7% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Transport & communication
4306yuan
+8.3% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Education, culture & recreation
3489yuan
+9.4% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Healthcare
2573yuan
+1.0% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Other goods & services
859yuan
+11.2% vs a year earlier
as of October 2025
Figures are cumulative since January (year-to-date); the percentage compares this year's running total with the same stretch of last year (nominal). Rising/falling colors are left off these — in China neither direction is unambiguously good news.
As of October 2025 (year-to-date). Income and spending are cumulative year-to-date figures — each quarter covers January through that quarter, compared with the same span a year earlier (the way China's statistics office publishes them). Nominal, per person. Quarterly, national figures, via the open mirror of official NBS data.
Where this data comes from
- China National Bureau of Statistics (via DBnomics mirror) — monthly — the open mirror runs ~1-3 months behind the official release
- OECD — international merchandise trade (via DBnomics mirror) — monthly, published ~2 months after month end
- The open mirror of official statistics holds only about the last year of monthly price readings and runs a few months behind — too short for any 'since 2019' comparison, so China shows year-over-year rates only.
- For China this page flags falling prices, not rising ones, as the warning sign: deflation at the world's biggest exporter points to weak demand.
- Tax check: China's CPI and PPI record the actual transaction price — Chinese retailers mark and charge one all-inclusive price with VAT embedded, unlike the separate line-item sales tax added at US checkouts — so CPI (and consumer spending below) is VAT-inclusive; PPI is explicitly the ex-factory price and excludes VAT by NBS's own definition, which is why it's labeled "factory-gate" rather than a consumer price. Income is a step further: NBS defines "per capita disposable income" as income AFTER personal income tax and social-insurance contributions are deducted — it's already an after-tax figure, unlike gross wage figures elsewhere on this site.
- The tracked-categories trend line averages the year-over-year change of the 9 consumer-price categories above each month — a % rate, not a rebased index (this mirror's ~13-month window can't reach back to 2019, unlike Japan/India/Europe).
- The income and spending breakdowns are the National Bureau of Statistics' own component tables — cumulative year-to-date yuan per person, each compared with the same span a year earlier; a component shows a year-over-year figure only when the mirror holds both years.
- Direct NBS API blocks automated cloud access; china_pmi via DBnomics' mirror of official NBS releases.
- china_cpi_yoy/china_cpi_food_yoy/china_ppi_yoy/china_income_pc/china_spending_pc: same DBnomics mirror of official NBS releases as china_pmi — it holds only a rolling recent window (roughly the last year, ~6 quarters for the household series) per dataset and lags the official release by a few months. Whatever exists is stored honestly; gaps stay gaps, nothing is interpolated.
- china_cpi_yoy/china_cpi_food_yoy/china_ppi_yoy: NBS publishes these as "same month last year = 100" (102.1 = prices up 2.1% on a year earlier); stored as the difference from 100 so the numbers read directly as % change vs a year earlier.
- china_cpi_yoy: headline CPI assembled from the NBS era-window dataset(s) M_A01010G/A01010G01 + M_A01010J/A01010J01 — M_A01010G/A01010G01: 11 month(s); M_A01010J/A01010J01: 2 month(s); stored 2025-02 → 2026-02.
- china_cpi_yoy: 13 month(s) marked "NA" by the mirror were skipped, never filled (each era dataset only carries its own era's months).
- china_cpi_food_yoy: DBnomics NBS/M_A010103, series A01010301 (2025-02 → 2026-02).
- china_ppi_yoy: DBnomics NBS/M_A010801, series A01080101 (2025-02 → 2026-02).
- china_income_pc: DBnomics NBS/Q_A0501/A050101 ("Per Capita Disposable Income Nationwide, Accumulated"), 6 quarter(s) 2024-09 → 2025-12.
- china_income_pc: values are cumulative year-to-date (Q2 = the first-half total, Q4 = the full year), stored under each quarter's closing month ("2026-Q2" → 2026-06) — compare a quarter with the same quarter a year earlier, never with the previous quarter.
- china_spending_pc: DBnomics NBS/Q_A0504/A050401 ("Per Capita Consumption Expenditure Nationwide, Accumulated"), 6 quarter(s) 2024-09 → 2025-12.
- china_spending_pc: values are cumulative year-to-date (Q2 = the first-half total, Q4 = the full year), stored under each quarter's closing month ("2026-Q2" → 2026-06) — compare a quarter with the same quarter a year earlier, never with the previous quarter.