14/4/26

Periods Are Getting More Expensive, and It's Not By Chance

The Rising Cost Of Having A Period - And Why It's Not An Accident

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One of the most consistent costs in many women's lives barely registers in conversations about inflation, household budgets, or financial planning.

It doesn't get a line item. It doesn't come up in salary negotiations. But it quietly accumulates, month after month, for decades.

The average person who menstruates will spend thousands over their lifetime on period products. And right now, that bill is rising faster than almost any other household essential.

The Price Has Gone Up, A Lot

If it feels like your period has started costing more, you aren’t imagining it.

In the US, average prices have risen nearly 40% since 2020.

In Australia, costs peaked at over A$11 per pack in 2023, sending more people to charities and community groups for free supplies just to get through the month.

And across Europe, the picture isn’t much better. In the EU, recent research suggests that more than 40% of people who menstruate have struggled with some form of period poverty in the past year, whether because they could not afford products, could not access them, or had to ration what they used.

In the UK, official data show period product prices rising over the past few years despite the removal of the “tampon tax”, while in Germany, a 2020 VAT cut was gradually passed on to shoppers, but even so it was offset by rising prices.

In Canada, around one in six people who menstruate have experienced period poverty, meaning they couldn't afford or access the products they needed - a number that rises to one in four in lower-income households.

There's a few factors at play here. Raw material costs for cotton, pulp, and plastics have risen, while energy and logistics costs went up across global supply chains.

And in the US specifically, tariffs on imports from the countries where most period products are manufactured added yet another layer of cost. Prices were already climbing before tariffs entered the picture. For many people, the combined effect has become genuinely hard to absorb.

In Many Countries, You're Also Being Taxed On Them

On top of inflation, many people are paying sales tax or VAT on period products, goods that roughly half the world's population cannot opt out of.

In the EU, the gap is striking.

Hungary taxes tampons at 27%. Denmark and Sweden at 25%. Ireland, Cyprus, and Malta have reached zero, recognising period products as essentials. Spain, Poland, and Luxembourg sit at 3 to 5%.

These aren't just numbers. They reflect a political choice about whose biological reality gets treated as a basic human need.

And studies show tax reforms work. Research on Germany's 2020 VAT reduction found that the cut reached consumers over time, with lower-income households buying more products as a result. The evidence from Belgium, France, and Austria points in the same direction.

That said, tax cuts don't automatically translate to lower shelf prices without competitive pressure and monitoring - getting the rate reduced is just the beginning of the fight.

Tax cuts don't automatically translate to lower shelf prices without competitive pressure and monitoring.

Period Poverty Is A Rich-Country Problem Too

When prices rise on something non-negotiable, the people with the least flexibility feel it first and hardest.

One Australian woman described removing groceries from her trolley at the end of a shop to afford period products.

A New Yorker called it "a subscription service to be a woman."

In the UK, charities report period poverty sitting alongside food poverty and fuel poverty as a marker of financial crisis.

These aren't edge cases - they're the logical consequence of treating a biological necessity as a discretionary expense.

One New Yorker called it "a subscription service to be a woman."

When women can't access period products, they're often forced into choices that carry real consequences: using products for longer than is safe, improvising with unsuitable materials, or staying home from work or school altogether. Each of those outcomes has a knock-on effect on health, finances, and participation in daily life.

Reusables: Genuinely Useful, Not A Complete Fix

The growth of reusable period products, cups, discs, cloth pads, and period underwear, has been one of the more meaningful shifts in this space.

The economics are compelling: a menstrual cup costing around $30 can last a decade, potentially saving over $1,800 compared with buying disposables monthly. Among younger consumers, affordability now ranks above environmental concern as the primary reason for switching.

But reusables aren't a universal answer. They require access to clean water, private bathroom facilities, and an upfront cost that can itself be a barrier for people already stretched.

For some people, disability, cultural context, or personal preference means disposables remain the only viable option.

So while the rise of reusables is great news, it doesn't remove the need to fix pricing, taxation, and access to disposables.

Where This Leaves Us

Period products aren’t extras. They are part of the basic cost of existing in a menstruating body: a recurring, gendered cost that the systems around us have been remarkably slow to take seriously.

When their cost rises faster than general inflation, and when the tax system treats them as luxuries, that's a structural problem, not an individual budgeting failure.

But things do change. VAT rates have come down in countries where advocates pushed hard enough. Free period products are now available in schools and public spaces in a growing number of places. The tampon tax is on the agenda in parliaments that ignored it a decade ago.

Progress is real, even if it's uneven. And the more of us understand the economics behind a cost they've always just absorbed, the harder it becomes to ignore.

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