In Luxembourg, salaries are indexed automatically: a +2.5% tranche kicks in as soon as the six-month moving average of prices reaches a legal threshold. This dashboard tracks that counter live, compares it to the threshold, and forecasts the next indexation, based on official STATEC data.
Each amber step is a trigger threshold, the threshold that triggers a tranche. They rise by exactly +2.5% one after another. The green curve is the six-month moving average of prices: when it crosses a step, the indexation is economically triggered. Dotted: its simulated trajectory under the central scenario (last 12 months' inflation, seasonal profile preserved).
The next threshold is the one STATEC announces in its monthly CPI note: last trigger threshold × 1.025, truncated to the hundredth. The DF_E5201 dataset only carries it once the tranche has been applied. The amber dots mark past crossings.
In the short term, the six-month moving average is partly written in advance: 5 of its 6 months are already published. Rather than extrapolating a slope (biased by base effects, such as the January sales dip dropping out of the window), we project the IPCN by replaying its seasonal profile under several inflation scenarios, then run the mechanism month by month up to the crossing.
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Today's IPCN (·) is above the six-month moving average: the latter will rise mechanically, even without new inflation. But the remainder still requires ≈ · % of price rises: at zero inflation, the threshold (·) stays out of reach. Range depending on the scenario: · → ·.
of delay on the tranche triggered in · (applied in ·, tripartite agreement). Under normal conditions, application follows the crossing by about · month ; the payment date remains a political decision.
| Inflation scenario | Threshold · | Threshold · |
|---|
Method: IPCN projected via seasonal profile with annual drift (Im = Im−12 × (1+g)); the momentum scenario, anchored on 3 months, is propagated with smooth compounding to avoid a discontinuity at the join. Six-month moving average recomputed month by month. Each scenario runs in two variants (seasonal profile, smooth compounding from the current level): the displayed range spans the two, and "beyond 36 months" means that one of them does not cross within the horizon. Estimates: neither official dates nor application dates.
External reference (tripartite monitoring committee, 20 October 2026): Statec states that "without measures, a second tranche would have been triggered at the end of 2026", which is exactly what the counter above reads, and that the tripartite measures (extended energy aids) shift that risk "towards early 2027"; its scenarios point to Q2 2027 without ruling out Q1, with a firm forecast due on 4 November (press). In August, its forecast of 5 August still pointed to Q3 2027. The counter itself is mechanical: it reads observed prices and does not anticipate the aids; if they lower measured prices, the coming IPCN releases will shift it on their own.
A forecast is only as good as its measured reliability. So we replay the method over the · most recent tranches: each time, we step back · months before the actual crossing, with only the data known at that date, and compare the prediction to the outcome.
· forecast(s) archived and timestamped since · : track_record.json.
| Threshold | Predicted | Actual | Error |
|---|
A tranche means +2.5% on salaries, overnight. Choose your point of view, enter an amount: the simulator quantifies the impact of the next tranche (at observed prices: ·) then projects it onto the following ones.
The 1st tranche is dated by the median of the simulations; the following ones are projected at the historical pace (~1 tranche every · months since 1985, indicative only, future inflation will decide. +2.5% compounded at each tranche.
Since ·, the sliding wage scale has triggered · tranches, about one every · months. Cumulatively, they have raised the salary index by +· %. Indexation is not a rare event: it is an underlying force that every employer must budget for.
| Application date | Applicable index | Increase |
|---|
The applicable index is the index at which salaries are paid: each tranche multiplies it by 1.025.
The six-month moving average (green) smooths the monthly IPCN (blue). As long as monthly inflation stays above the average, the latter rises and moves closer to the threshold. This is the real engine of the counter, and what makes any forecast dependent on the next price figures.
Nearly one employee in two in Luxembourg lives in France, Belgium or Germany: they face the prices of their home country, while their pay follows the Luxembourg index. The comparison uses the harmonised index (HICP, Eurostat), the only one built the same way in all four countries. On the wage side, however, only Luxembourg and Belgium index automatically: the same inflation does not have the same effect on both sides of the border.
Year-on-year rate at the latest month published by Eurostat for all four countries (·), 24-month sparklines, shared scale. The Luxembourg index itself is triggered by the national NCPI (1948 base), not by the HICP: · year on year in ·.
The index is a mechanism, not a gift: three keys to understand what it really protects, why nearly all our neighbours gave it up, and how a fuel subsidy postpones your next pay rise.
Between two tranches, prices rise while the salary stays flat: purchasing power erodes, then the next tranche restores it in one step (+2.5%). The result is a sawtooth: the price curve against the staircase of indexed wages.
Two base-1948 indices, rebased to 100 in ·. The vertical gap between the price curve and the wage staircase is the temporary erosion of purchasing power; each step closes it. Over the long run the two climb together: the index preserves purchasing power, it does not increase it. If someone presents the index to you as a pay rise, the chart says otherwise: a real raise comes on top.
Since the tranche applied in ·, prices have gained ·: on 4,000 € net, that is already ≈ · of purchasing power per month, waiting for the next tranche. Your own numbers, in the simulator →
The classic objection: indexation can turn a price shock into a wage-price spiral: prices rise, wages follow automatically, business costs follow, and prices rise again. France de-indexed wages in 1983, Italy abolished its scala mobile in 1992; in the EU, general indexation barely survives outside Luxembourg, Belgium (on a "health index" without tobacco or motor fuels), Malta and Cyprus. Luxembourg's answer to the spiral risk is called modulation: when the shock is too violent, the tripartite delays the application, as in 2022 (a tranche postponed by 10 months).
The index triggers on measured prices. An aid that lowers a price in the basket (the cents off motor fuel, the Resilienzpak energy aids) therefore mechanically delays the crossing of the threshold. That is the arithmetic of the October 2026 tripartite: the state funds the aids, the tranche waits, employers gain a few months without the +2.5%. Hence the assumed gap between this counter (observed prices: it states the pressure) and the political calendar (early 2027: it decides the valve).
Fiduciaries, payroll bureaus, media, HR intranets: the counter comes as an embeddable widget (one line of code, attribution included) and the full state of the calculation (average, thresholds, scenarios, probabilities) is served as open JSON.
<iframe src="https://index.sitraka.lu/widget.html"
width="340" height="190" style="border:none"></iframe>
The complete state of the counter, recomputed at every monthly STATEC release:
GET https://index.sitraka.lu/data/data.json
Source data CC0 (STATEC). For the widget and the JSON, attribution “index.sitraka.lu, Sitraka Forler” is requested.
index.sitraka.lu is not standalone: it is the 4th piece of an eight-part series that turns Luxembourg's public data into decision-making tools. One and the same method (official sources, verified calculation, zero dependencies) applied to eight fields.
Journalists, analysts, HR: take the figure, cite the source. The counter is updated at every STATEC release.