Fuel Prices in Europe

The pump price consists of three components: 1) Product cost — the base price of refined fuel, roughly similar across Europe since it trades on international markets. 2) Excise duty — a fixed tax per liter, set by each country. This is the biggest driver of price differences. Luxembourg charges about 0.36 EUR/L excise on petrol, while the Netherlands charges over 0.80 EUR/L. 3) VAT — applied on top of product cost + excise. Countries with low excise duties and low VAT rates (like Bulgaria, Poland) have the cheapest fuel.

The data comes from the EU Oil Bulletin, published every Tuesday by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Energy. It collects prices from all EU member states plus several EEA countries. The prices represent the weighted average pump price across each country for the previous week. We update our database every Tuesday morning.

Luxembourg deliberately sets low excise duties on fuel as an economic strategy. This attracts cross-border fuel tourism — an estimated 75% of fuel sold in Luxembourg goes to foreign drivers (commuters from Belgium, France, Germany). The tax revenue from this volume, even at low rates, is a significant income source for the small country. The EU has set minimum excise rates, but Luxembourg stays close to these minimums.