How much of what you pay is tax?
Last updated . Figures refresh every night. How each figure is worked out.
As of 21 September 2026, 81.6p of the UK's 172.0p average litre of petrol is tax — 47%, made up of 52.95p fuel duty and 28.7p VAT. Household energy is taxed far more lightly: the Ofgem price cap is £1,723 a year for a typical household, of which VAT is 5% on gas and 0% on electricity. Pump prices come from DESNZ, cap figures from Ofgem, and every figure on this site is refreshed nightly and shown with its own date and source.
Figure as of 21 September 2026. Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ofgem.
A litre of petrol, right now
Figure as of 21 September 2026. Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Figure as of 21 September 2026. Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Figure as of 21 September 2026. Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Figure as of 22 September 2026. Source: Ofgem. Checked by hand 22 September 2026.
Year on year: the biggest movers
Every figure on this site is shown against the same point a year earlier. These are the largest moves across all pages, ranked by percentage change. An upward arrow means the figure is higher than a year ago; the arrow carries the direction, not just the colour.
- Crude in a litre of petrolOil market · 15 September 2026 61.0pup on a year earlier: +29.6p (+94.1%)
- Brent crudeOil market · 15 September 2026 $130.80up on a year earlier: +$62.92 (+92.7%)
- US dieselInternational · 7 September 2026 $5.967up on a year earlier: +$2.201 (+58.4%)
- Diesel pump priceRoad fuel · 21 September 2026 195.5pup on a year earlier: +53.5p (+37.7%)
- US petrolInternational · 7 September 2026 $4.157up on a year earlier: +$0.965 (+30.2%)
- Petrol pump priceRoad fuel · 21 September 2026 172.0pup on a year earlier: +37.9p (+28.2%)
- UK petrol in dollars per gallonInternational · 14 September 2026 $8.58up on a year earlier: +$1.73 (+25.3%)
- UK household electricity (IEA basis)International · 1 July 2024 30.45pdown on a year earlier: −5.45p (−15.2%)
- Tax per litre of petrolRoad fuel · 21 September 2026 81.6pup on a year earlier: +6.3p (+8.4%)
- Tax on a 55-litre fillRoad fuel · 21 September 2026 £44.89up on a year earlier: +£3.47 (+8.4%)
Where a figure a year earlier is not available at the same cadence, the nearest available observation is used and its date is shown.
Every question this site answers
Road fuel
- How much tax is in petrol? 47% of a litre of petrol is tax — 52.95p duty plus 28.7p VAT on a 172.0p litre.
- How much tax is in diesel? 44% of a litre of diesel is tax — 52.95p duty plus 32.6p VAT on a 195.5p litre.
- What are UK petrol and diesel prices today? Petrol 172.0p and diesel 195.5p a litre, week to 21 September 2026, with the year-on-year change.
- What is the UK fuel duty rate, and how did it get there? Fuel duty is 52.95p a litre, frozen until at least 31 December 2026, with the full rate history.
- Why does the pump price not fall when the oil price does? Why the pump does not track Brent: only 61.5p of a 172.0p litre is crude, plus rockets-and-feathers evidence.
Household energy
- How much of my energy bill is tax? About 10% of a typical bill is tax and levies — £80 VAT and £85 policy costs on £1,663.
- What is the energy price cap, and what is it now? £1,723 a year for a typical household from 1 October to 31 December 2026, with unit rates, standing charges and the full history.
- What do renewables levies cost me? About £150 a household a year across three schemes, some on the bill and some through tax.
- Why is UK electricity so expensive? UK industrial electricity is 26.63p/kWh, the highest in the IEA. Why, in five parts.
- How do UK electricity prices compare with other countries? UK households 30.45p/kWh, 2 of 29 IEA members; full country tables for industry and households.
The future of motoring tax
- What is the electric car pay-per-mile tax, and what happens to fuel duty? 3p a mile from 1 April 2028, about £300 a year, against about 7.2p a mile for petrol drivers.
Tax revenue
- When does raising a tax rate stop raising money? Tobacco duty per cigarette up 247.6%, cigarettes taxed down 75.1%, real receipts 41.6% below their 2011–12 peak.
How this site works
A pipeline runs every night at 02:00 UTC. It fetches each source, checks every value against sanity bounds, and writes the result to files committed in the repository, so each run leaves a visible diff and a history. A source that fails never blanks a figure: the last good value stays, with its date and a marker saying it has not updated. The run status page shows what worked last night and what did not.
Figures with no machine-readable source — Ofgem's cap components, the eVED rates, the policy timeline — are kept in a config file with a source link and the date a human last checked them, and that date is printed next to the figure. The methodology page sets out how each derived number is calculated, and everything is downloadable as CSV and JSON.
Common questions
- How much of UK petrol is tax?
- 81.6p of the 172.0p average litre, or 47%: 52.95p fuel duty plus 28.7p VAT, as of 21 September 2026.
- How much of a UK energy bill is tax?
- Far less than on fuel. VAT is 5% on gas and 0% on electricity, and policy levies are about 5% of a typical bill.
- How often are these figures updated?
- Every night at 02:00 UTC. Each figure carries the date of the observation behind it, and a marker appears if its source has stopped updating.
Use this data
Everything on this page is published under CC BY 4.0. You may republish it, including commercially, if you credit Tekstak Ltd and link back to this page.
Download
- UK average petrol pump price, weekly since 2003 (CSV) JSON
- UK average diesel pump price, weekly since 2003 (CSV) JSON
- All data and field definitions
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Sources for this page
| Source | Publisher | Figures as of | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly road fuel prices | Department for Energy Security and Net Zero | 21 September 2026 | weekly |
| Ofgem, energy price cap unit rates and standing charges | Ofgem | 22 September 2026 | quarterly |