Euro Inflation Calculator
Inflation quietly shrinks what your money buys. Enter an amount, an annual inflation rate and a number of years to see both sides of the coin: what today's money will be worth, and how much you'd need in the future to match today's purchasing power.
What rate should I use?
The European Central Bank targets 2% inflation over the medium term, making 2% the standard planning assumption for the eurozone. Reality wanders: eurozone inflation (HICP) spent most of the 2010s below 2%, then spiked above 10% in late 2022 before falling back toward target. For stress-testing long-term plans, run the numbers at 3% too. Current and historical rates are published by the ECB and Eurostat.
Why this matters for savers
At 2% inflation, money loses about a third of its purchasing power in 20 years; at 4%, more than half. Cash needed soon belongs in the best available savings rate — compare what a term deposit earns — but the only reliable long-term defence has historically been owning productive assets. See how to start investing in Europe, and use the inflation-adjusted option in the S&P 500 calculator to plan in today's money.
Real returns: the number that actually matters
Every return you see quoted — a savings account's 2.5%, the stock market's "10% average" — is nominal. Your wealth grows only by the real return: nominal minus inflation. A 2.5% savings account during 2% inflation grows your purchasing power by roughly 0.5% a year; during the 2022 inflation spike, the same account lost more than 7% of its real value in a single year while looking "safe" in the statement. This is the quiet argument for owning productive assets long-term: stocks' historical ~10% nominal became ~6–7% real, while cash's real return has hovered around zero for a century.