Heating Winter 2026: What Gas, Heating Oil and Electricity Will Cost Europe's Households

Europe enters the heating season in a weak position. The EU's gas stores were about 73% full on 8 October — the lowest level for the time of year since records began in 2011 — and are expected to reach only around 75% by the 1 November target date, short of the already-lowered 80% goal. The Dutch TTF gas benchmark trades at roughly twice its pre-war level, heating oil costs around €1.70 a litre in Germany, the most since March 2022, and in our own hourly data wholesale electricity has averaged €150/MWh in Germany over the last 30 days, 39% more than in July.

The cause is the same supply shock that has pushed fuel prices to records: the war around the Strait of Hormuz has cut liquefied natural gas from Qatar, drone strikes and export bans have tightened oil products, and every extra euro on gas feeds through into the price of power. How much a household ends up paying depends on three things: where it lives, how it heats, and how cold the winter turns out to be.

This is a living report: the price figures below are read live from our database, and we revise the analysis as the winter unfolds. For the fuel side of the same crisis, see our report on fuel prices.

Gas heats more European homes than any other fuel and sets the price of much of Europe's electricity, so the storage level matters twice.

• Storage: on 8 October the EU's facilities were about 73% full, roughly 15 points below the five-year average; Germany, the biggest consumer, stood at under 60%. At the current injection pace, analysts expect around 75% by 1 November — missing the 80% target that member states had already cut from the usual 90%.
• LNG: QatarEnergy has extended force majeure on its liquefied-gas shipments to Europe and Asia through November and into early December. Qatar normally supplies roughly an eighth of Europe's LNG, all of it through the Strait of Hormuz.
• Price: the Dutch TTF benchmark traded at around €72-80 per megawatt-hour in early October, more than double its pre-war level of about €30 and the highest since early 2023.

The risk is not that the heating stops — grid operators say the system can meet winter demand — but that a cold spell late in the season drains the stores quickly, pushes prices up and forces Europe to buy expensive gas next summer to refill them. The base case of most analysts keeps TTF above €70 into early 2027; a cold snap combined with renewed disruption in the Gulf could send it beyond €100.

Because gas-fired plants usually set the price in the hours when demand is highest, the gas shock lands directly in the power market. Over the 30 days to 2026-10-15, day-ahead prices in our data averaged:

• Hungary €193/MWh, Romania €190 and Greece €184 — when we published, south-eastern Europe, short of cheap baseload power, was paying the most.
• Austria €183 — 49% above its July average of €123.
• Germany €150, France €154, the Netherlands €161, Poland €148 and Spain €151.
• Norway (Oslo) €124, Finland €52 and Sweden (Stockholm) €37 — hydro and nuclear power keep the Nordics far below the rest.

Wholesale prices reach household bills with a delay of months, through supplier tariffs and regulated price caps, so this autumn's rise is mostly still ahead of consumers. You can follow every zone hour by hour on our wholesale electricity pages.

Millions of German homes, and many rural households across Europe, still heat with oil — and they are hit by the same diesel squeeze that has driven pump prices to records, because heating oil and diesel are near-identical middle distillates. In Germany a litre of heating oil costs around €1.70 in October, the highest level since March 2022, when the start of the war in Ukraine pushed it to almost €2.

Unlike petrol and diesel, heating oil gets no tax relief: Germany's 17-cent fuel rebate applies only at the pump, and no specific support for heating-oil customers has been decided so far. Low water on the Rhine adds to the cost in south-western Germany, where barges normally deliver much of the supply. For oil-heated homes the usual advice applies more than ever: compare dealers, consider ordering together with neighbours, and avoid buying in a hurry during a cold spell, when prices tend to jump.

The latest official household prices from Eurostat (period 2026-S1) show how unevenly the shock lands — and because they date from before the war, they are the baseline that this winter's increases come on top of.

Gas (ct/kWh, all taxes included): Spain 5.5, Poland 9.0, Hungary 10.9, Germany 10.9, Austria 11.2, Italy —, France 11.5, the Netherlands 15.2 and Sweden 19.0, against an EU average of 9.6.

Electricity (ct/kWh): Hungary 9.6, the Netherlands 22.5, Poland 32.9, France 29.7, Sweden 34.7, Spain 31.5, Italy —, Austria 37.7, Germany 41.6 and Ireland —, against an EU average of 27.4.

For a typical household using 15,000 kWh of gas a year, that meant around €1634 in Germany against €1433 at the EU average; 3,500 kWh of electricity cost around €1458 in Germany against €958. Most of the gap between countries is political: taxes, levies and network charges, plus regulated prices in countries such as Hungary and Spain, explain far more of it than the cost of the energy itself. Full rankings and their history are on our household electricity and household gas pages.

How quickly wholesale prices reach households depends on how each country sets its tariffs.

• In Great Britain the regulator Ofgem raised its price cap by 4% to £1,723 a year for a typical dual-fuel household from 1 October, and analysts at Cornwall Insight expect a further rise of about 16% in January, to around £1,999 — the biggest increase since early 2023. The January cap will be announced by 25 November.
• In Germany most households are on contracts that follow the market with a lag, and suppliers have to announce increases several weeks in advance, so higher purchasing costs will show up in tariffs over the winter rather than overnight. The CO₂ price on heating fuels adds to the bill as well.
• Countries with regulated or capped household prices, Hungary among them, shield consumers in the short run, but the cost moves to the state budget.

The pattern from the last crisis is instructive: wholesale gas peaked in August 2022, but household gas prices across the EU only peaked in the first half of 2023.

Governments are reacting, but far more modestly than in 2022, and mostly with targeted help rather than broad price brakes. The Bruegel think tank counts more than €11 billion of fiscal measures for this energy crisis so far, over half of it in Spain and Germany.

• Germany is paying a second heating-cost allowance of at least €345 to around two million people on low incomes: €415 for a single-person housing-benefit household, €540 for two people and €100 for each additional person, and €345 for eligible students and trainees. There is no gas or electricity price brake as in 2022-23.
• France is sending energy vouchers of €48 to €277 to 5.8 million households three months earlier than usual.
• The United Kingdom has cut VAT on household electricity from 5% to zero from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027.
• The Netherlands and Belgium support vulnerable households with heating costs, Sweden pays lump-sum electricity subsidies, and Greece is preparing up to €200 million more for fuel and heating support.

The difference from 2022 is deliberate: targeted help reaches those who need it while leaving the price signal intact — and every cubic metre of gas that is not burned helps the storage last through the winter.

Nobody can change the gas price, but a few steps reliably cut the bill:

• Turn the thermostat down a little: as a rule of thumb, each degree less saves around 6% of heating energy.
• Check your contract: compare your tariff with offers in your area, and read any price-change letter carefully — in most countries a price increase gives you the right to switch.
• Maintain the heating: bleed radiators, have the boiler serviced and insulate exposed pipes; small fixes add up over a long winter.
• Use cheap hours: with a dynamic electricity tariff, running appliances or a heat pump when wholesale prices are low saves real money — our hourly wholesale prices show when that is.
• Plan heating-oil orders: fill up when prices dip rather than in a cold snap, and ask about group orders.

And check what support you are entitled to: allowances such as Germany's heating-cost grant are often not claimed by everyone who could.

• The weather: a mild winter lets Europe get through on low stores; a long cold spell in January or February would drain them and push gas and power prices up sharply.
• The Gulf: as long as Qatar's LNG is held back and tankers around Hormuz come under attack, Europe competes with Asia for every cargo from the US and elsewhere. A durable reopening of the strait would ease gas faster than anything else.
• The refill: the lower the stores are in spring, the more gas Europe has to buy next summer — which can keep prices high well into 2027.

Dates to watch: the storage target date on 1 November, Ofgem's January cap by 25 November, the end of Qatar's force majeure in early December, and Eurostat's household prices for the first half of 2026, expected around the end of October, which will show the first official effect of the crisis on bills. We will update this report as the evidence changes.

This is a living report. The price figures above are read live from our database and refresh on their own as new data arrive; the analysis is reviewed and revised by hand as the winter unfolds.

• 10 October 2026 — First published: EU gas storage at about 73% (8 October), TTF around €72-80/MWh, German heating oil around €1.70 a litre; wholesale power averaging €153/MWh in Germany over 30 days, 33% more than in July; household price comparison based on Eurostat data for 2025-S2.