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Date : Oct 01, 2025

Urban Consumer Confidence Survey

Today, the Reserve Bank released the results of September 2025 round of its bi-monthly urban consumer confidence survey (UCCS)¹. The survey collects current perceptions (vis-à-vis a year ago) and one year ahead expectations of households on general economic situation, employment scenario, overall price situation, own income and spending across 19 major cities. The latest round of the survey was conducted during August 28 to September 06, 2025, covering 6,068 respondents.

Highlights:

On account of improved sentiments observed in most of the survey parameters, consumer confidence for the current period improved marginally. The Current Situation Index (CSI)² rose by 0.4 points to 96.9 in September 2025 (Chart 1; Tables 1, 2, 5 and 6).
Consumer confidence for the year ahead continue to remain in optimistic territory, indicating continued confidence in outlook. The Future Expectations Index (FEI) rose by 0.3 points to 125.0 in this round of the survey (Chart 1; Tables 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6).
Households expect a decline in both price and inflationary pressures over the coming year although pessimism about the current price level and inflation inched up marginally. (Tables 3 and 4).
Households’ sentiment regarding their current earning situation have been improving for the last four rounds, while the future sentiments remained range bound, with gradual uptick (Table 5).

Chart 1: Urban Consumer Confidence Indices

Note: Please see the excel file for time series data³

Table 1: Perceptions and Expectations on the General Economic Situation
(Percentage responses)
Survey Round	Current Perception				One year ahead Expectation
Survey Round	Increased	Remained Same	Decreased	Net Response	Will Increase	Will Remain Same	Will Decrease	Net Response
Sep-24	37.3	21.1	41.6	-4.4	55.5	16.0	28.6	26.9
Nov-24	35.8	21.3	42.9	-7.1	54.9	17.2	27.9	27.0
Jan-25	34.9	22.1	43.0	-8.0	55.2	15.8	29.0	26.2
Mar-25	34.7	24.7	40.6	-5.9	56.6	14.9	28.5	28.0
May-25	35.7	22.4	41.9	-6.2	57.9	13.4	28.7	29.2
Jul-25	34.2	27.5	38.3	-4.2	55.7	20.9	23.4	32.3
Sep-25	37.0	22.1	40.9	-3.9	57.9	16.8	25.3	32.6

Table 2: Perceptions and Expectations on Employment
(Percentage responses)
Survey Round	Current Perception				One year ahead Expectation
Survey Round	Increased	Remained Same	Decreased	Net Response	Will Increase	Will Remain Same	Will Decrease	Net Response
Sep-24	35.5	21.8	42.8	-7.3	54.2	18.9	26.9	27.3
Nov-24	34.6	23.0	42.4	-7.8	54.6	18.9	26.5	28.1
Jan-25	34.5	22.7	42.7	-8.2	54.7	18.3	27.0	27.6
Mar-25	35.5	23.0	41.5	-6.1	56.4	16.5	27.1	29.3
May-25	36.2	21.8	42.1	-5.9	56.9	16.1	27.0	29.8
Jul-25	32.6	28.2	39.2	-6.7	53.6	23.8	22.6	31.0
Sep-25	35.3	23.2	41.5	-6.2	56.6	18.3	25.1	31.5

Table 3: Perceptions and Expectations on Price Level
(Percentage responses)
Survey Round	Current Perception				One year ahead Expectation
Survey Round	Increased	Remained Same	Decreased	Net Response	Will Increase	Will Remain Same	Will Decrease	Net Response
Sep-24	93.3	5.8	0.9	-92.4	82.0	9.5	8.6	-73.3
Nov-24	94.3	5.0	0.7	-93.6	82.3	9.2	8.5	-73.8
Jan-25	93.0	6.1	0.9	-92.0	83.0	9.2	7.9	-75.1
Mar-25	91.0	7.8	1.3	-89.7	82.2	9.4	8.4	-73.8
May-25	90.9	6.6	2.5	-88.5	82.5	8.1	9.4	-73.1
Jul-25	90.3	6.4	3.3	-87.0	81.6	9.3	9.1	-72.4
Sep-25	89.7	7.9	2.4	-87.3	81.0	9.1	9.9	-71.1

Table 4: Perceptions and Expectations on Rate of Change in Price Level (Inflation)*
(Percentage responses)
Survey Round	Current Perception				One year ahead Expectation
Survey Round	Increased	Remained Same	Decreased	Net Response	Will Increase	Will Remain Same	Will Decrease	Net Response
Sep-24	80.7	13.0	6.2	-74.5	78.7	15.9	5.4	-73.4
Nov-24	82.5	12.1	5.4	-77.2	79.3	15.1	5.7	-73.6
Jan-25	80.7	12.9	6.5	-74.2	79.9	14.5	5.7	-74.2
Mar-25	79.4	14.0	6.7	-72.7	78.5	15.0	6.5	-72.0
May-25	78.0	14.8	7.2	-70.7	78.1	14.7	7.2	-70.8
Jul-25	78.7	12.5	8.7	-70.0	79.7	10.9	9.4	-70.3
Sep-25	77.8	14.7	7.6	-70.2	78.0	13.0	9.1	-68.9
*Applicable only for those respondents who felt price has increased/price will increase.

Table 5: Perceptions and Expectations on Income
(Percentage responses)
Survey Round	Current Perception				One year ahead Expectation
Survey Round	Increased	Remained Same	Decreased	Net Response	Will Increase	Will Remain Same	Will Decrease	Net Response
Sep-24	24.1	51.6	24.3	-0.3	55.8	38.2	6.0	49.9
Nov-24	23.8	51.7	24.5	-0.7	56.6	37.1	6.4	50.2
Jan-25	22.0	55.0	23.0	-1.0	55.9	37.4	6.8	49.1
Mar-25	23.8	53.0	23.3	0.5	57.5	36.0	6.5	51.0
May-25	24.1	52.2	23.7	0.4	58.0	36.3	5.7	52.3
Jul-25	22.7	56.7	20.6	2.1	57.0	38.6	4.4	52.6
Sep-25	27.0	49.2	23.8	3.2	59.0	35.0	6.0	53.0

Table 6: Perceptions and Expectations on Spending
(Percentage responses)
Survey Round	Current Perception				One year ahead Expectation
Survey Round	Increased	Remained Same	Decreased	Net Response	Will Increase	Will Remain Same	Will Decrease	Net Response
Sep-24	80.4	16.9	2.7	77.6	79.6	16.9	3.6	76.0
Nov-24	80.9	17.2	1.9	79.0	80.8	16.4	2.8	78.0
Jan-25	79.3	19.4	1.3	77.9	78.8	18.3	2.9	75.9
Mar-25	80.1	18.8	1.2	78.9	79.6	18.0	2.4	77.2
May-25	78.7	19.9	1.4	77.3	81.1	16.4	2.5	78.6
Jul-25	80.2	17.7	2.2	78.0	81.0	18.0	1.0	80.0
Sep-25	81.4	15.7	2.9	78.5	82.1	15.0	2.9	79.1

Table 7: Perceptions and Expectations on Spending- Essential Items
(Percentage responses)
Survey Round	Current Perception				One year ahead Expectation
Survey Round	Increased	Remained Same	Decreased	Net Response	Will Increase	Will Remain Same	Will Decrease	Net Response
Sep-24	87.9	10.3	1.8	86.2	84.9	12.4	2.7	82.2
Nov-24	88.6	9.7	1.7	86.9	85.9	11.5	2.6	83.3
Jan-25	87.6	10.9	1.6	86.0	85.1	12.3	2.6	82.5
Mar-25	87.4	12.0	0.6	86.9	86.2	12.1	1.8	84.4
May-25	87.5	11.0	1.4	86.1	86.9	11.3	1.8	85.1
Jul-25	87.5	11.5	1.0	86.5	87.1	12.0	0.9	86.2
Sep-25	88.6	9.5	1.9	86.7	87.3	11.0	1.7	85.6

Table 8: Perceptions and Expectations on Spending - Non-Essential Items
(Percentage responses)
Survey Round	Current Perception				One year ahead Expectation
Survey Round	Increased	Remained Same	Decreased	Net Response	Will Increase	Will Remain Same	Will Decrease	Net Response
Sep-24	27.6	40.2	32.3	-4.7	36.4	37.8	25.8	10.6
Nov-24	30.2	37.2	32.6	-2.4	38.4	35.0	26.6	11.8
Jan-25	29.2	38.5	32.3	-3.1	37.4	36.1	26.5	11.0
Mar-25	28.5	40.9	30.7	-2.2	37.7	37.7	24.6	13.1
May-25	27.8	41.1	31.2	-3.4	38.2	37.3	24.5	13.8
Jul-25	37.6	25.1	37.3	0.4	43.6	27.7	28.7	15.0
Sep-25	35.5	30.4	34.1	1.4	39.8	35.8	24.5	15.3

¹ The survey results reflect the respondents’ views, which are not necessarily shared by the Reserve Bank. Results of the previous survey round were released on the Bank’s website on August 06, 2025.

² CSI and FEI are compiled on the basis of net responses on the economic situation, income, spending, employment and the price level for the current period (as compared with one year ago) and a year ahead, respectively. CSI and FEI = 100 + Average of Net Responses of the above parameters.

³ Unit-level data for previous rounds of the survey are available on the Bank’s ‘Database on Indian Economy’ (DBIE) portal (weblink: https://data.rbi.org.in/DBIE/#/dbie/home) under the head ‘Unit-level Data’.

⁴ ‘Net response’ is the difference between the percentage of respondents reporting optimism and those reporting pessimisms. It ranges between -100 and 100. Any value greater than zero indicates expansion/ optimism and values less than zero indicate contraction/ pessimism.