October 2025 CPI: the month that does not exist
No CPI exists for October 2025. Pick that month in the calculator: it uses September 2025 instead, says so, and shows November beside it.
Value in September 2026
$103.74
$100.00 in September 2025 buys what $103.74 buys in September 2026, U.S. average.
| Cumulative price change | +3.7 % |
| Average per year | +3.74 % |
| Index, September 2025 | 324.8 |
| Index, September 2026 | 336.94 |
| BLS series | CUUR0000SA0 |
October 2025 was never published: the BLS could not collect prices during the lapse in appropriations. September 2025 is used; November 2025 is the next index.
Prepared by Radif Partners · How the figures are built · BLS indexes through September 2026
There is no October 2025 Consumer Price Index, and there never will be. Federal funding lapsed from October 1, 2025 to November 12, 2025, the Bureau of Labor Statistics could not send its collectors out, and it decided not to collect October prices after the fact. It issued no October release, and every October 2025 cell in its tables shows a dash with footnote X, "Data unavailable due to the 2025 lapse in appropriations". The national index went from 324.8 in September 2025 to 324.122 in November 2025, a two-month rise of -0.2 %, with nothing in between. The gap has consequences that last into 2026: the 2025 annual average was computed from 11 months, 5 for the metros priced in even months; rents were held at their April 2025 level for October, an effect that worked out in April 2026; and the October 2026 release, due November 10, 2026, will carry no 12-month change where October 2025 is missing. This site never fills the month: it uses the nearest earlier index and names it.
What happened, date by date
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| October 1, 2025 | Lapse in appropriations begins; BLS price collection stops. |
| October 15, 2025 | Planned release of the September 2025 CPI, postponed. September prices had already been collected. |
| October 24, 2025 | September 2025 CPI released, more than a week late. |
| November 12, 2025 | Lapse ends. October prices are not collected retroactively. |
| November 14, 2025 to November 30, 2025 | November 2025 prices collected, with extra hours. |
| December 18, 2025 | November 2025 CPI released, without 1-month changes. No October release ever. |
| January 13, 2026 | December 2025 CPI released on the original schedule. |
Why the BLS did not fill the month
CPI collectors price goods in stores and rents in housing units during the reference month. The survey does not ask anyone to remember what they paid, so prices cannot be collected later for a past month. The BLS judged a late collection both costly and potentially inaccurate, and it did not have the staff to collect two months of data in two weeks. It also chose not to invent a new method on short notice, which it said could have been seen as manipulating the data.
So the computation used the documented fallback of its imputation system: when nothing can be observed, the last known price is carried forward. Survey prices were carried from September to October; rents were carried from April 2025, the last time the October panel of housing units had been visited. That is how the November index could be computed. But the BLS did not publish the October levels this produced, because they were not observed prices. In a period of rising prices, the BLS notes, carry-forward tends to understate the change.
What the calculator does with October 2025
The month stays in the list, labeled "not published, 2025 lapse". If you choose it, the calculator uses September 2025 and writes, under the result, that October was never published and that November 2025 is the next index. $1,000 of October 2025 therefore becomes $1,037.38 in September 2026, computed from September. The BLS calculator does something stricter: it refuses any calculation that uses October 2025. Neither averages September and November, and neither should you in a contract without saying so.
Try October 2025 in any area
Value in September 2026
$1,037.38
| Cumulative price change | +3.7 % |
| Average per year | +3.74 % |
| Index, September 2025 | 324.8 |
| Index, September 2026 | 336.94 |
Metros priced every other month
Twenty metros are priced every other month, and the lapse hit them unevenly. The odd-month areas (Boston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Washington, DC, Tampa, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Riverside, San Diego, Urban Hawaii) do not price October anyway: their September and November 2025 indexes exist, and their year is complete. The even-month areas (Philadelphia, Detroit, St. Louis, Miami, Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Urban Alaska) lost one of their six indexes for the year. Their prices were carried forward from August 2025, and in December 2025 the BLS published no two-month change for them, since the October level it would have compared with was never published.
Consequences that last into 2026 and 2027
The 2025 annual average. For a series missing October, the BLS averaged the 11 published months, and the 5 published months for even-month areas. The national 2025 average is 321.943. Odd-month areas were averaged as usual.
Rents in April 2026. Rent and owners' equivalent rent are measured on six panels of housing units, each visited every six months. The October panel was carried forward from April 2025, and the effect resolved when that panel came back in April 2026: the one-month rent change estimated for April 2026 was atypical, based on a 12-month change instead of a 6-month one. Shelter for the nation went from 418.598 in September 2025 to 418.593 in November 2025.
Seasonal adjustment. To keep a continuous series for the new seasonal factors, the BLS approximated October with the geometric mean of September and November. That stand-in exists only inside the seasonal adjustment; it was never published as an index.
The October 2026 release. On November 10, 2026 the BLS will publish October 2026 indexes, but no 12-month percent change for the series that have no October 2025 value. Headlines that month will have to use another comparison; this site will show the index and say that the 12-month change does not exist.
Weights and the chained CPI. The Census Bureau could not collect the Consumer Expenditure Surveys in October and November 2025. Those surveys supply the spending weights of the 2027 CPI and the final chained CPI-U for 2025. The BLS adjusted the weights for the missing months; final chained figures for October to December 2025 are due on November 10, 2026, and the 2027 weights in February 2027. Their values are to come.
What to do with a contract that names October
A lease or an agreement that reads the CPI "for October 2025" cannot be applied as written. The parties have to agree on a substitute, and the choices are the ones the BLS itself used elsewhere: the previous month, the next month, or a comparison over two months. This site does not choose for you; it shows September and November side by side so the choice is visible. For a clause that reads the latest index available, nothing changes: until December 18, 2025 the latest index was September 2025, and from that day it was November 2025.