Inflation Calculator Canada: What an Amount Is Worth in Another Year

This calculator converts an amount of money from one year into the equivalent amount in another year, using Statistics Canada’s Consumer Price Index (CPI). Enter the amount, the year it is from and the year to compare it with. It works in both directions: forward, to see what an old price means in later dollars, or backward, to see what a recent amount would have been worth in an earlier year.

How the calculation works

The calculator compares the annual average CPI of the two years, from Statistics Canada’s annual average index (table 18-10-0005-01), which uses 2002=100 as its base. The equivalent amount is:

Equivalent amount = amount × (CPI in the later year ÷ CPI in the earlier year)

Reading the results

• Equivalent value: the amount with the same buying power in the year you are comparing with.
• Total inflation: how much prices rose (or fell) between the two years, as a percentage.
• Average annual rate: the steady yearly rate that would produce the same total change, compounded. In the example above, it is 2.20% a year. Actual inflation differed from one year to the next.
• Purchasing power change: how much less (or more) the original amount buys in the comparison year. In the example, $1,000 from 2000 buys 41.9% less in 2025.

The result is in “constant dollars”: it adjusts for the average change in consumer prices, not for any one product. A particular item, such as rent or a car, may have risen faster or slower than the CPI as a whole.

Annual averages vs the latest month

Because the calculator works with whole-year averages, the latest year it can use is the last complete calendar year. The most recent monthly index is 169.8 for August 2026, and the 12-month change in the CPI was 3.0%. To compare a past year with today’s prices month by month, the Canada inflation rate page has a table of what $100 from past years is worth against the latest month, plus monthly inflation rates for recent years, annual rates back to 1915 and what the CPI includes.

Inflation in the years ahead

The calculator only uses past CPI values. For the future, a planning rate is an assumption: the Bank of Canada aims to keep inflation at 2%, the midpoint of its 1% to 3% target range.

The investment calculator shows a portfolio’s future value in today’s dollars, and the retirement calculator gives results in today’s dollars when you enter a return after inflation. What savings and investments have done against inflation, and what “real return” means, is covered in how to protect your savings from inflation.

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• GIC calculator: interest on a GIC, to set against the inflation rate
• Hourly to salary calculator: converting pay between hourly and yearly
• Personal finance guides: budgeting, cost of living and the other personal finance calculators
• Cost of living in Canada: what households spend, by province and city