Following the military strikes in the Middle East in late February 2026, global energy markets experienced significant disruption. Iran’s restrictions on maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of seaborne crude oil normally flows, substantially reduced tanker volumes along one of the world’s most critical oil transit routes. In this blog, we try to provide some first evidence on the associated changes of consumer spending in Switzerland after this geopolitical shock and the ensuing surge in energy costs. We use the weekly Consumer Spending Index (CSI), which is based on expenditure data provided by Worldline Schweiz AG, to investigate to which extent aggregate spending levels and the composition of expenditures across categories have changed after the shock.
Figure 1: Evolution of the weekly average price of Brent Crude Oil (USD/barrel). The dashed line indicates the onset of the Iran crisis in late February 2026.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, as reported by Federal Reserve Economic Data.
Figure 1 shows the evolution of Brent Crude oil prices since end of 2025. The figure illustrates that prices rose sharply following the escalation, which in turn triggered a sharp increase in fuel prices in Switzerland. How did this geopolitical shock impact consumer spending in Switzerland?
Figure 2 displays the four-week average of year-on-year nominal growth in the aggregate Consumer Spending Index before and after the onset of the crisis. Higher post-crisis growth is clearly visible, suggesting that consumer spending increased. To assess whether this reflects seasonal patterns in spending growth, Figure 3 shows average year-on-year growth rates by month. Notably, March is historically the weakest month for spending growth across the CSI sample. The increase in growth rates during the post-crisis window is therefore striking. Based on historical averages, one would have expected growth rates to fall in March rather than rise. This suggests that at least partly, the surge in spending in March 2026 relative to March 2025 reflects a genuine crisis-induced effect on nominal spending.[1]
Figure 2: Year-on-year growth in aggregate Consumer Spending Index (CSI), comparing the 4-week average before (Jan 31 – Feb 27) and after (Feb 28 – Mar 27) the onset of the crisis. Growth rates are computed relative to 4-week average of the same period in 2025.
Source: Consumer spending index, own calculations.
Figure 3: Average year-on-year growth rate by month in aggregate CSI, computed across the full sample (2018–2026) and excluding the COVID period (March 2020–September 2021).
Source: Consumer spending index, own calculations.
Figure 4: Year-on-year expenditure growth by category, comparing the 4-week average before (Jan 31 – Feb 27) and after (Feb 28 – Mar 27) the onset of the crisis on Feb 28, 2026. Growth rates are computed relative to 4-week average of the same period in the previous year.
Source: Consumer spending index, own calculations.
If nominal spending increases in line with the rise in fuel prices, and fuel demand is relatively inelastic in the short term, one would expect some reallocation of expenditures across categories. To shed light on possible spending shifts, Figure 4 examines spending shifts across expenditure categories. Three observations stand out. First, fuel-related expenditure rose substantially after the onset of the crisis, with the year-on-year nominal growth rate increasing by around 10 percentage points. The placebo check in Figure 5 for the previous year (2025) suggests that this can indeed be attributed to the Iran crisis: spending at fuel stations increased less in the post-period in 2025, confirming that the large increase observed in 2026 is indeed related to the crisis rather than to seasonal patterns. Given the inelastic fuel demand in the short run, the evidence shows that consumers largely absorbed the higher costs at the pump.
Second, accommodation spending softened in the post-crisis period. However, this should be interpreted with care, as the 2024–25 ski season was the strongest in fifteen years, according to Swiss Cable Cars (SBS). The decline in 2025–26 is therefore at least partly attributable to a high base effect and possibly to worse snow conditions in 2026.
Third, the ‘Other’ category shows negative growth in both the pre- and post-crisis periods, with only a slight recovery after the crisis onset. This could be consistent with a softening of discretionary expenditure, but the heterogeneous composition of this category makes precise interpretation difficult.
Figure 5: Year-on-year expenditure growth by category, comparing the 4-week average before (Jan 31 – Feb 27) and after (Feb 28 – Mar 27) the placebo of Feb 28, 2025. Growth rates are computed relative to 4-week average of the same period in the previous year.
Source: Consumer spending index, own calculations.
Overall, rather than inducing a drop in Swiss card spending overall, the geopolitical shock appears to have generated a genuine increase in aggregate nominal spending. At the same time, it altered the composition of spending, driven by a sharp rise in fuel expenditures. In the coming months, it will be important to assess which expenditure categories ultimately absorb these higher fuel costs, and whether spending patterns normalize as households adjust to the new price environment.
Further sources:
https://www.seilbahnen.org/news/saisonmonitoring-april-2026
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DCOILBRENTEU
[1] A comparison with the previous year’s growth rates, split around the 2026 crisis, shows that the increase is large and thus reinforces this interpretation.