The survey gathers anonymised information on the goods and services bought by people who live in Guernsey, in order to find out the average cost of living here.
The Household Expenditure Survey will be taking place over a whole year, from October 2023 to October 2024. The aim is to survey up to 50 households per fortnight, totalling more than 1,000 households. This approach ensures the results are reliable and incorporate the seasonal changes in expenditure patterns. Addresses are selected at random and the people living at those addresses are approached. This helps ensure participants represent a broad cross section of the Island's households, from people living alone to large families or house-shares.
The results of the survey will be used to update the price inflation indices (the Retail Prices Indices and the Household Costs Indices), to ensure they remain accurate and representative of what people in Guernsey spend their money on (see www.gov.gg/rpi for the latest figures and to download a copy of the Guide to the Guernsey Price Inflation Indices). These indices impact on almost all Islanders in some way or other, for example:
- Wage negotiations
- Social Security benefit rates
- Pension payments
- Maintenance payments
- Rental price reviews
The results of previous surveys are available from www.gov.gg/household for anyone to access.
Participants will be given the choice of a cash payment (£20 for the first adult plus a further £10 for each other person aged 16 or over and £5 for each person aged 15 or under in the household) or a prize draw ticket as a thank you for taking part. There will be four prize draws (on 30th January, April, July and October 2024), each with prizes as follows:
- 1st prize, £150
- 2nd prize, £100
- 3rd prize, £50
First prize draw (30th January 2024) - winners have been contacted by email:
- 1st prize, £150 - ticket number 1023
- 2nd prize, £100 - ticket number 1016
- 3rd prize, £50 - ticket number 1181
All the information is provided in confidence. Names, addresses and any other identifying information is removed, leaving just the anonymised data which is used to provide grouped statistics, so that no person or household is identifiable in the results. The data is not shared with any other States of Guernsey service or third party. To find out how Data & Analysis process your personal data you can 
read our Fair Processing Notice [260kb].
If you would like to volunteer for the Survey, please use this form to send us your contact details and let us know when you would like to do the survey.
If you would like to find out more about the Survey or provide us with feedback, please call 07781 419273 or email hes@gov.gg.
If you would like to receive an email and/or text notification when the next survey becomes available (or you wish to stop receiving those notifications), please log in or register here.
