Import prices rise 1.1 percent in September and 8.1 percent in a year, the fastest annual pace since July 2022, as costs climb beyond fuel

The cost of bringing goods into the United States is rising again, and this time it is not only the fuel bill.

Import prices jumped 1.1 percent in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday, following a revised 0.5 percent rise in August and beating the 0.8 percent increase economists polled by Reuters had forecast. Over the twelve months through September, import prices rose 8.1 percent, the largest annual increase since July 2022, up from 6.7 percent in August, as of October 17. The figures exclude tariffs, which are counted separately from the price paid to the foreign seller.

Fuel did much of the lifting, as it has all year. Imported fuel prices rose 4.8 percent in September after falling in July and August. Petroleum prices rose 4.6 percent in the month and 35.4 percent in the year, and natural gas prices, up 1.6 percent in September, have nearly doubled in a year, rising 96.5 percent. The war with Iran, the attacks on energy sites across the Gulf and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz sit directly underneath those numbers.

The part of the report that changes the story is the rest of it. Prices outside fuel rose 0.7 percent in September and 6.0 percent over the year, the biggest annual gain since April 2022, and they have not fallen in any month since August 2025. Imported capital goods rose 0.9 percent, and consumer goods outside automobiles rose 0.4 percent. That is the same broadening that showed up in this weeks consumer and producer price reports, and it is why economists told Reuters inflation is no longer only an energy story. Export prices rose faster still, up 2.2 percent in September and 11.6 percent in the year, led by fuel exports.

What it means at the Federal Reserve is narrower than the headlines suggest. Markets still expected the central bank to leave rates alone later this month and to tighten in December, after it raised its benchmark rate in September to a range of 3.75 to 4.00 percent. Import prices do not pass straight through to shop prices. Importers absorb some of the rise in their margins, renegotiate, or change suppliers, and pass the rest along with a lag. But a cost that rises for thirteen straight months outside fuel does not disappear inside the supply chain. It waits there, and September says it grew.