Fuel Duty Rise 2026: What Actually Changes, and When

Is fuel duty going up in 2026?

No, not in September. Fuel duty on petrol and diesel is 52.95p a litre, and it stays there until 31 December 2026.

A rise was scheduled for 1 September 2026. The government announced on 20 May 2026 that it wasn't happening. It extended the freeze to the end of the year instead, and the order doing that came into force on 15 June. If you've read that petrol goes up a penny at the start of September, that was true when it was written and it isn't true now.

The next scheduled step is 1 January 2027. Duty is then set to reach 55.95p a litre, and 57.95p from 1 March 2027.

Those two dates aren't settled either. HMRC calls them the "legislative default" and says the government will confirm final rates at Budget 2026. That Budget is on 28 October 2026. So they're what happens if nothing changes, and something has already changed once this year.

Duty is only one slice of the pump price, and one line in the cost of running a car. For the whole fuel bill, and everything else that keeps a car on the road, read running costs of a used car.

The dates and the rates

Fuel duty is a flat charge per litre. It doesn't rise or fall with the price of the fuel itself.

The rate has been 52.95p since 23 March 2022, when a temporary 5p cut brought it down from 57.95p. That cut was meant to last a year. It has been rolled over at every fiscal event since, and again in May 2026.

Petrol and diesel carry exactly the same duty. That's been true for over twenty years. Diesel costs more at the pump for other reasons, not because the tax on it is higher.

The 57.95p figure isn't a new rate. It's the rate written into the Hydrocarbon Oil Duties Act 1979, which is what applies once the temporary cut runs out. So the plan takes duty back to where it sat in early 2022 and no further.

The government cancelled the inflation-linked rise for 2026 to 2027 at Budget 2025. HMRC says RPI uprating resumes in the 2027 to 2028 financial year. No rate has been set for that yet.

Who this doesn't affect

Electric cars pay no fuel duty at all. HMRC's own note says the tax excludes electricity, which is covered by the climate change levy instead. Charging a car isn't in scope.

But watch the wording: it's the electricity that escapes, not the vehicle. A plug-in hybrid pays full duty on every litre of petrol it burns.

Biofuels get no discount either. Bioethanol and biodiesel are charged at the same 52.95p as petrol and diesel, so E10 petrol is no cheaper on tax than E5.

Red diesel is taxed far lower, but it's fenced off. Rebated fuel can only go in specific vehicles and machines, used for specific purposes, and HMRC sets out which in Excise Notice 75. Putting it in a car on the road is an offence.

Nor is there a regional escape. Fuel duty is set UK-wide and isn't devolved, so the rate is identical in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Gas is different again. LPG and natural gas are charged per kilogram rather than per litre, so any pence-per-litre figure on this page is about petrol and diesel only.

What a duty rise does to the price you pay

Duty isn't the last tax on a litre of fuel. VAT goes on top, and it's charged on the price including the duty. HMRC's VAT guide spells that out: for goods carrying excise duty, the taxable value is the price plus the duty.

That makes the maths easy: VAT is 20%, so every 1p of duty costs you 1.2p at the pump.

The full unwind is 5p of duty. Add the VAT and it's 6p a litre, between now and 1 March 2027.

Tax is already about half of what you hand over. In the week commencing 24 August 2026, average unleaded petrol was 161.63p a litre. Duty took 52.95p of that and VAT took another 26.94p, so roughly 49p in every pound was tax.

Diesel averaged 182.82p in the same week. Duty and VAT came to about 83p, or 46%. The share is smaller only because the fuel underneath it costs more.

Those pump prices move every week. Duty doesn't. Our running costs guide tracks the weekly picture, and what it means for a whole year's fuel bill.

What it costs you in pounds

These are worked estimates, not measurements. They assume the full 6p reaches the pump, that you drive a petrol car averaging 45mpg, and that fuel prices are otherwise flat. Change any of those and the number changes.

A 55-litre tank costs about £3.30 more to fill. A diesel car doing 12,000 miles at 55mpg comes to around £60 a year.

None of it arrives at once: roughly 3.6p comes in January 2027 and the remaining 2.4p in March.

I'd treat these as a rough steer and nothing firmer. The mpg figure is the weak link, because real-world economy swings hugely with the car and the driving.

That's the real limit of any figure on this page. A national average tells you nothing about the car on your drive.

That's what our free car check is for. Put in a number plate and you get a running-cost estimate for that vehicle, plus its MOT and tax record.

Should you actually worry about this?

Honestly, only a little. Six pence a litre is real money and worth knowing about, but set against the rest of what a car costs it's a small line.

Put the numbers side by side. The full unwind costs a typical driver somewhere near £73 a year. Insurance and servicing both run to hundreds, and one unexpected repair can beat the lot.

And depreciation usually dwarfs all of them. It's the cost you never write a cheque for, which is exactly why buyers underrate it.

So the sensible response isn't to change what you drive over a few pence. Budget for it, and put your attention on the bigger lines.

FAQs