In addition to being a general measure of inflation, the HICP is also used in the areas of:

• wages, social benefit and contract indexation;

• economic forecasting and analysis;

• measuring specific price trends;

• accounting purposes and deflating other series;

• inflation targeting by central banks;

• cross-country economic comparisons.

The euro area (evolving composition) index is used by the European Central Bank (ECB) as the main indicator for monetary policy management. The ECB and the European Commission's Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) use the HICP for assessing price stability and price convergence required for entry into European Monetary Union.

Other users include: National Central Banks, financial institutions, economic analysts, the media and the public at large.

CPI and HICP data are used for national, European and international (IMF, OECD) purposes. National and European institutions (Government, Bank of France, European Central Bank) use them for analysis in the short and long term as well as for economic and political decision-making. CPI are often used in order to chain-link different contracts and minimum wages.

Since 2018, a committee of users of CPI has have a meeting on a year basis. It consists of researchers, economists, institutions, representatives of the society.

All ECOICOP indices at 5-digit level are produced. The scope of the HICP is household final monetary consumption expenditure that occurs, throughout the whole of France (including Mayotte since 2023). The national weights of the ECOICOP items are determined according to the data derived from the National Accounts. For items representing a very low level of consumption (below 1/1000 of the consumption of the HICP), no prices are recorded. Only the sub-categories 12.6.2.2 (financial consulting and brokering), 10.5.0.0 (education not definable by level) and 04.1.2.1 (rentals actually paid for secondary residences) are not monitored. The sample is updated annually to take account of changes in consumption behaviours and, in particular, to introduce new goods or services. The revisions concern the list and the content of varieties in addition to the breakdown according to forms of sale and per urban unit. All ECOICOP/HICP sub-indices whose weights represent for more than one thousandth of the total expenditure covered by the HICP (except for the sub-categories mentioned above) are transmitted to Eurostat on a monthly basis.