The European Central Bank has updated its wage tracker using active collective bargaining agreements signed up to mid-January 2026, continuing to indicate that negotiated wage growth should level off at below 3% by end-2026. The headline tracker, which smooths one-off payments over 12 months, points to negotiated wage growth of 3.2% in 2025 and 2.4% in 2026. Compared with the December 2025 release, the 2026 headline reading was revised up by 0.1 percentage points, with employee coverage of 49.9% for 2025 and 33.1% for 2026. Alternative measures show 3.0% in 2025 and 2.7% in 2026 when one-off payments are not smoothed, while the tracker excluding one-off payments eases from 3.9% in 2025 to 2.7% in 2026 (also revised up by 0.1 percentage points for 2026). For 2026, the headline path is 2.1% in the first half and 2.7% in the second half, which the ECB links to the fading mechanical downward effect from large one-off payments made in 2024 but not in 2025; the tracker also indicates less cross-country dispersion in negotiated wage pressures in 2026 than in previous years. The forward-looking horizon remains December 2026 for this release, but is planned to be extended to the first quarter of 2027 in the July 2026 release as coverage of contracts beyond 2026 increases. The ECB reiterates that the forward-looking component is not a forecast and may be revised as new agreements are signed.

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