5.01%. That is the inflation rate Brazilian financial market economists now expect for 2026, according to the Focus survey released by the Central Bank on Monday (5), as reported by Folha de S.Paulo. For ordinary Brazilians, the forecast's return above 5% means paychecks will keep losing purchasing power faster than previously expected.
The grocery math is simple: a supermarket run that cost 500 reais in January should cost around 525 reais by December if the projection holds. The estimate rose 0.02 percentage point from the previous week and sits above the Central Bank's target ceiling of 4.5% (a 3% target with a tolerance band of 1.5 points in either direction).
Explained
Focus is a weekly Central Bank survey of economists at banks and consultancies, used as a gauge of market expectations for inflation, growth and interest rates. The IPCA, Brazil's official inflation index, tracks the prices of a basket of goods and services consumed by households.
The survey brought bad news for growth as well. The forecast for GDP (gross domestic product, the sum of everything the country produces) in 2026 fell from 1.86% to 1.85%, and the estimates for 2027 and 2028 were also trimmed, to 1.40% and 1.81% respectively.
Weaker growth usually means less room for jobs and wage gains in the coming years. For 2027 inflation, economists now see 4.30%, slightly below last week's 4.31%, while the 2029 forecast rose from 3.50% to 3.51%.
On interest rates, nothing changed: the benchmark Selic is still expected to end the year at 13.5%, with analysts betting on two more cuts at the November and December meetings of the Copom, the Central Bank's rate-setting committee. Rates at that level keep credit cards, overdrafts and loans expensive, though they reward savers in fixed income.
The survey closed on Friday (2), before Sunday's first-round presidential vote, which put senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, ahead of incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The next Focus bulletin will be the first to capture the market's reaction to the election result.