Nigeria closed 2025 with headline inflation at 15.15% in December, down 19.65 percentage points from 34.80% recorded in December 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
2025 will be remembered as the year inflation numbers stopped being shocking, even though prices remained elevated. Unlike the wild swings that defined 2024, where inflation rose to record highs, 2025 was the year of more predictability.
That stability came at a price. Nigerians adapted by cutting back, repricing their lives and businesses, and lowering expectations. Nigeria’s headline inflation stood at 24.48% in January 2025 after the methodology and base year were changed. Inflation stood at 34.80% in December 2024.
According to the NBS, inflation was rebased, “to replace outgoing reference periods (2009). Rebasing aligns the price and weight reference periods with the current economic environment, ensuring methodological accuracy, updating the composition of the goods and services basket, revising item weights, and incorporating necessary improvements.”
Since then, inflation has seen a steady drop, falling to 15.15% in December 2025. “The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose to 131.2 in December 2025, up by 0.7 points from the previous month (130.5),” the NBS said. “The December 2025 year-on-year Headline inflation rate stood at 15.15% relative to the November 2025 headline inflation rate (17.33%).”
Beyond the headline number, the inflation figure directly impacts Nigerian paychecks, which have not moved at the same pace. For many tech workers and startup employees, transport costs now rival rent, and food bills have reset monthly budgets.
In places like Lagos, Nigeria’s startup capital, where inflation of 17.5% is above the national average, startup workers are having to absorb shock quietly through side gigs, delayed life plans, or lower living standards.
While the data may be signalling a turning point, with food inflation at 10.84% in December 2025, the reality for many startup workers is a change in living standards and an everyday life that is now indifferent to economic shocks.
