The Power Index

The 10 Highest-Inflation Economies in the World

The IMF’s April 2026 World Economic Outlook projects consumer-price inflation for 196 economies. Venezuela leads at 387.4% — more than five times the second-place entry. Six of the ten highest-inflation countries are at war or under international sanctions. And one former leader, Argentina, is falling fast.

Source: IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2026 (released April 14, 2026). Average annual consumer-price inflation, projected for 2026. Comparison row figures from IMF WEO database.

Argentina at #4 is the headline within the headline. Javier Milei inherited annual inflation of 211% in December 2023. The IMF now projects 30.4% for 2026 — a drop of 181 percentage points in roughly two years. No other country on this list is moving in the same direction at the same speed.

Bolivia is a new entrant. A collapse in natural-gas production has starved the country of dollar earnings. Fuel shortages have spread across the economy. Inflation hit 20.7%, a level Bolivia hasn’t seen in decades.

The gap at the top tells its own story. Venezuela’s 387.4% is more than five times Sudan’s 75.1%. That kind of spread usually means the leader isn’t just experiencing inflation. It is experiencing a currency that no longer functions as money.

The top three — Venezuela, Sudan, Iran — are familiar. Venezuela has been in economic free fall since 2014. The IMF has projected it above 100% every year for a decade. Sudan’s civil war, which began in April 2023, has displaced millions and destroyed what remained of the formal economy. An estimated 73% of Sudanese now live in poverty. Iran’s inflation reflects the compounding effect of U.S. sanctions, currency depreciation, and a managed economy that cannot adjust fast enough.

The broader pattern: most of these countries have state-dominated economies, active conflicts, or both. Türkiye is the partial exception — a large, diversified economy where inflation is a policy choice as much as a structural outcome. The Central Bank of Turkey held its policy rate at 37% as of June 2026, trying to cool an economy still running near 30%.

$487

What a $100 basket of goods in Venezuela costs one year later, at 387.4% annual inflation.

181 pp

The drop in Argentina’s annual inflation since December 2023 — from 211% to a projected 30.4% under Milei.

73%

Share of Sudan’s population living in poverty, after two years of civil war and 75% inflation.

37%

Türkiye’s central-bank policy rate as of June 2026, held steady to fight a three-year inflation cycle.

323×

The ratio between Venezuela’s inflation (387.4%) and China’s (1.2%) — the widest gap in the IMF’s projections.

The IMF’s October 2026 WEO will revise these projections with six months of additional data. Argentina is the country to track — if Milei holds the current trajectory, it could fall off this top-10 list entirely by the next edition. Iran’s actual May 2026 inflation of 77.2% already exceeded the IMF’s full-year projection of 68.9%, suggesting an upward revision is likely. We’ll be watching.

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