Retail sales, Great Britain: December 2025

The quantity of goods bought (volume) in retail sales is estimated to have fallen by 0.3% in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2025 compared with Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2025. Supermarkets and non-store retailers' sales both fell following a strong Quarter 3 2025.

Retail sales volumes are estimated to have risen by 0.4% in December 2025, following a fall of 0.1% in November 2025 (unrevised from our previous publication) and a fall of 0.8% in October 2025 (revised up from a 0.9% fall in our previous publication). Non-store retailers' volumes rose in December 2025, following falls in October and November, with online jewellers reporting that demand for precious metals picked up in December.

Annual sales volumes rose 1.3% over the year to 2025, with increases in both food and non-food stores, as well as non-store retailers.

Sales volumes fell by 0.3% in the three months to December 2025 (Quarter 4) compared with the three months to September 2025 (Quarter 3). When compared with Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2024, sales volumes rose by 2.1%.

Sales volumes rose by 0.4% over the month during December 2025, following a 0.1% fall in November 2025, and rose by 2.5% over the year to December 2025.

Volumes were down by 1.5% compared with their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic level in February 2020.

These data are available in our Retail Sales Index dataset. Revisions to previous periods are presented in more detail in Section 7: Data sources and quality.

Sales volumes fell over Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2025. This was partly because of a strong Quarter 3 (July to Sept) for supermarkets, which are included in food stores, with retailers mentioning both good weather and the UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 tournament boosting volumes. Non-store retailers fell in Quarter 4 2025 as a result of falls in October and November. In November 2025, retailers suggested that reduced demand for precious metals affected sales. Automotive fuel sales also fell on the quarter, following a stronger July period in Quarter 3 2025.

Total sales volumes rose over the month to December 2025. Non-store retailers rebounded, with online jewellers confirming renewed demand for precious metals, following a lull in November 2025. There was also a small rise for supermarkets and sales of automotive fuel, while non-food stores (the total of department, clothing, household, and other non-food stores) fell 0.9% on the month.

The amount spent online, known as "online spending values", rose by 2.1% when comparing Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2025 with Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2025. It rose by 8.4% when comparing the same period with Quarter 4 2024.

With the monthly series, online sales values rose by 1.8% over the month to December 2025, and by 11.1% when comparing December 2025 with December 2024.

Total spend (the sum of in-store and online sales) rose by 0.8% over the month. As a result, the proportion of sales made online rose from 28.0% in November 2025 to 28.3% in December 2025.

Our Consumer card spending, e-commerce and digital trade insights in the UK: 2019 to 2025 article is scheduled to be published in February 2026. This will be the first in a series of analytical articles exploring trends in digital trade in the UK, and will feature an initial investigation of card payment data and insights from online spending by UK consumers.

Retail sales volumes rose by 1.3% in 2025, following a rise of 0.2% in 2024, and falls in both 2022 and 2023. Despite this being the second consecutive annual rise, volumes did not recover from the 2023 fall, and remained below 2019 pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic levels.

In 2025, all main sectors except automotive fuel rose on the year. Food stores rose for the first time since 2021, but did not fully recover from their fall in 2024. Both non-food stores and non-store retailers rose for the second year in a row, recovering from drops in 2023. However, volumes for non-store retailers remained clearly below their peak in 2021. This peak was attributed to the temporary closure of large sectors of physical retail, which allowed online portals to meet consumer demand throughout the pandemic.

Sales volumes for automotive fuel fell over the year in 2025, following a rise in 2024, returning to just below their 2023 levels.

For December 2025, the Retail Sales Index (RSI) survey response rates were 61.6% based on returned forms, 0.3 percentage points above the average of the past twelve months. This accounted for 86.0% of total turnover coverage of the sample population. Historical response information is available in our Retail sales quality tables dataset.

Information on how we calculated the data, including strengths and limitations, and a glossary of relevant terms, is available in our RSI quality and methodology information (QMI).

Revisions

Revisions in this release are a result of: 

• revisions to seasonal adjustment factors, which have been reviewed and re-estimated 

• late responses to survey returns replacing imputations, or revisions to original returns 

The number of revisions in this release is higher than usual because some large retailers, mainly within the food sector, updated their returns over the past 12 months.

Revisions are allowed to occur naturally each month, along the full length of each data time series following direct seasonal adjustment of the component time series. 

For further information on the revisions profile, please see our Retail sales revisions triangles, one-month growth dataset and our Retail sales revisions triangles, three-month growth dataset. 

Seasonal adjustment

Seasonally adjusted estimates are derived by estimating and removing calendar effects (for example, Easter moving between March and April) and seasonal effects (for example, increased spending in December because of Christmas) from the non-seasonally adjusted estimates. 

We use the X-13ARIMA-SEATS approach to seasonal adjustment. Seasonal adjustment parameters are monitored closely and regularly reviewed. Improvements following our annual seasonal adjustment review have been implemented in this release. More information is available on our Seasonal adjustment methodology page. 

Seasonal adjustment is applied at the industry level, and the seasonally adjusted series are aggregated to create estimates by industry sector and total retail. As part of our quality assurance approach, residual seasonality checks are completed regularly by our time series analysis team on both the seasonally adjusted series and the indirectly derived aggregate time series. Based on current data, we find no residual seasonality in the main aggregate for monthly retail sales estimates.

Accredited official statistics 

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in March 2015. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".