Hyperinflation: when prices run away

What counts as hyperinflation

In 1956 the economist Phillip Cagan defined hyperinflation as prices rising by at least 50% a month, and that is still the usual yardstick. Fifty percent a month compounds to ×129.7 in a year — a yearly rate of 12,875%. Most countries have no long monthly series, so this article works with yearly averages: the World Bank's since 1960 and the IMF's since 1980. A year that averaged Cagan's pace was a hyperinflation year by any definition; a year below it can still hide hyperinflation months.

5 country-years in the data averaged Cagan's pace or more: Zimbabwe 2008 (231,150,889%), Venezuela 2018 (65,374%), DR Congo 1994 (23,773%), Venezuela 2019 (19,906%) and Nicaragua 1987 (13,110%). Below that line the article uses three bands of yearly inflation: 50% or more, 100% or more (prices at least doubled) and 1,000% or more (prices rose more than tenfold).

Some of the most famous cases came before these data begin: Germany in 1922–23; Hungary in 1945–46, the highest rate ever recorded; Greece in 1944; China in the late 1940s. Others fall into gaps: Yugoslavia's hyperinflation of 1992–94 is in neither source (Serbia's series starts in 1995), nor is Argentina's of 1989–90 (Argentina's series starts in 1998). Neither source has Argentine figures for 2014–2016. Missing years stay blank: nothing is filled in by hand.

Since 1960, country by country

Each row below is one of the 40 countries where prices at least tripled in some year, each cell a year since 1960, colored by inflation. Blank cells are years without data: 30 of these 40 series start in 1980 or later, and many of the countries did not exist as states before. The rows run in the order of each country's worst year, so the waves show: worst years came most often in the 1990s (26 countries), the 1980s (7 countries) and the 2010s (2 countries).

The debt crisis of the 1980s hit Latin America; the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia brought the biggest wave. The year with the most countries at 100% or more was 1993: 25 of the 175 countries with data. In the last ten years of data it was a few at a time: Venezuela, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Sudan, Lebanon and Argentina.

The worst years on record

The highest yearly rate in the data is Zimbabwe in 2008: 231,150,889%. On yearly averages, something that cost 1 in 2007 cost about 2.31M in 2008 — and a yearly average still hides the worst month. Next come Venezuela 2018 (65,374%), DR Congo 1994 (23,773%), Nicaragua 1987 (13,110%) and Bolivia 1985 (11,750%).

The 20 worst country-years belong to just 11 countries: Zimbabwe, Venezuela, DR Congo, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Peru, Ukraine, Angola, Armenia, Turkmenistan and Brazil. The scale is logarithmic: each gridline to the right is ten times the one before.

How fast prices double: from 35 years to 17 days

At a yearly rate r, prices double every ln 2 ÷ ln(1 + r) years. At 2% a year that is 35 years; at 10%, 7.3 years; at 100%, exactly a year; at 1,000%, 3.5 months; at Cagan's pace, 52 days. At Zimbabwe's 2008 average, prices doubled every 17 days.

Each step of the staircase is one rate; next to it, how many country-years in the data reached that rate or more (on a phone, tap a step). Of the 10,031 country-years since 1960, 236 had 100% or more — prices at least doubled within the year — and 51 had 1,000% or more.

How long it lasted

The peak years are short; the high inflation around them is not. The longest run of consecutive years at 50% or more among these 40 countries: Brazil, 1980–1995 (16 years); then Peru, 1978–1992 (15 years) and Angola, 1991–2003 (13 years). The median run around a country's worst year lasted 5 years.

The table lists every country with its worst year, how many years it spent at 50% or more, its longest run, where its data start and its latest year.

Then and now

Peru went from 7,482% in 1990 to 1.5% in 2025. In all, 29 of the 40 countries had inflation under 10% in their latest year of data, at least 10 years after their last year at 50% or more; the cards show the 8 with the worst peaks.

4 countries had inflation of 50% or more in their latest year of data: Venezuela (252% in 2025), Sudan (99.9% in 2025), South Sudan (97.6% in 2025) and Zimbabwe (81.4% in 2025).