When was fuel excise cut in 2026?

Fuel excise was cut from 52.6c to 20.6c a litre from 1 April to 30 June 2026. It rose to 36.6c from 1 July to 2 August, and returned to the full rate, indexed to 53.7c, on 3 August 2026.

Was the 2026 fuel excise cut passed on?

At the wholesale level, yes for petrol. The national terminal gate price for petrol fell 36.5c a litre over 31 March and 1 April, against a cut worth 35.2c including GST. Diesel fell 21.8c and then kept rising, because international diesel prices were climbing at the same time.

How much did the 2026 excise cut save a household?

For a household using 30 litres a week, the cut was worth about $137 over April to June and about $25 in July, roughly $160 in total, assuming it was passed on in full at the pump.

What the 2026 Fuel Excise Cut Did to Petrol and Diesel Prices

What changed, and when

With petrol near $2.50 a litre and diesel past $3 in March, the federal government cut fuel excise for three months and then phased it back in. Excise is a flat amount per litre, the same for petrol and diesel, and GST is charged on top of it, so each change at the bowser is 10% bigger than the change in the rate.

From	Excise, c/L	Change	Change with GST
2 February 2026	52.6	indexed
1 April 2026	20.6	−32.0	−35.2
1 July 2026	36.6	+16.0	+17.6
3 August 2026	53.7	+17.1	+18.8

Rates for petrol and diesel, ATO tariff items 10.5 and 10.10. The August rate includes the half-yearly inflation indexation that would have applied anyway.

Petrol and diesel, national average terminal gate price, cents a litre, each weekday from March to August 2026. Dashed lines mark the three excise changes.

The cut on 1 April

Terminal gate prices include excise, so a cut shows up in them straight away. Some wholesalers moved a day early, which spreads the fall across two days in the national average.

Wholesale petrol fell 36.5c a litre between 30 March and 1 April, from 242.6c to 206.1c. The cut was worth 35.2c with GST. Petrol got all of it.

Diesel fell 21.8c over the same two days, from 310.9c to 289.1c, and then went straight back up. By 9 April it reached 325.9c, the highest national wholesale diesel price in the 22 years of data we hold. The excise cut did happen for diesel, but international diesel prices were rising so fast that the saving was overtaken within a week.

That matters for anyone who judged the policy by the price on the sign. A diesel driver in mid-April saw prices higher than before the cut and reasonably concluded it had not been passed on. The wholesale figures say it was, and that without it diesel would have been about 35c dearer still.

The first step back on 1 July

When excise went from 20.6c to 36.6c, the national wholesale price of petrol rose from 147.3c on 30 June to 162.6c on 1 July, a rise of 15.3c. Diesel rose 15.0c, from 160.0c to 175.0c. Both are slightly less than the 17.6c the change was worth with GST, so wholesalers absorbed a little of it on the day, helped by oil prices that had eased through June.

Back to the full rate on 3 August

The last step was the largest because it included the August indexation. Between 31 July and 3 August wholesale petrol rose 20.1c, from 184.1c to 204.2c, and diesel rose 21.8c, from 224.4c to 246.2c, against a change worth 18.8c with GST. Oil was rising at the time too. Both prices eased over the following week, petrol to 190.6c by 12 August, before the September rise began.

How it compares with the 2022 cut

Australia has done this once before. On 30 March 2022, a month after Russia invaded Ukraine, excise was halved from 44.2c to 22.1c for six months. That cut was worth 24.3c a litre with GST.

Petrol and diesel, national average terminal gate price, cents a litre, March to October 2022.

Wholesale petrol fell 28.0c between 29 March and 1 April 2022, and diesel 25.8c, so both carried the full cut. When excise came back on 29 September, at 46.0c after indexation, petrol rose 24.5c and diesel 25.9c over two days, in line with the 26.3c the change was worth.

So the pattern in both episodes is the same. At the terminal gate, excise changes are passed through quickly and close to in full, in both directions. Whether they reach your tank depends on the retail margin, which is set by the servo and moves with the local price cycle.

What it was worth to a household

For a car using 30 litres a week, about 400 kilometres in a typical medium car, the saving was 35.2c a litre for the 13 weeks of April to June, which comes to $137, and 17.6c a litre against the old rate for most of July, a further $25. That is about $160 in total, if retailers passed it on in full. You can put your own car into the fuel cost calculator to see what a change of this size does to your weekly spend.

For the government, every cent of excise on every litre of petrol and diesel sold is worth several hundred million dollars a year, which is why cuts are short and rare. The government has said there will not be a second cut this year.

What to take from it

An excise change is one of the few price moves you can see coming. It happens on a known date and arrives in full at the terminal gate. Filling up the day before a rise, or the day after a cut, is worth the full amount.
For diesel in particular, the international price can swamp a tax cut. Judge a cut by the terminal gate price, not the price on the sign.
The next change is the February 2027 indexation, which will add roughly 1c a litre if inflation runs near 2%. We update every calculation on this site on the day it applies.

Where these figures come from

Wholesale prices are the terminal gate prices published each weekday by the Australian Institute of Petroleum, which we hold back to 2004. The national figure is AIP's own average where it has published one, and our weighted calculation in between, which matches AIP's to within 0.1c. Oil and currency prices are delayed market closes. Excise rates are the ATO's. We check every figure against that data before publishing and correct mistakes in the update log. Spotted one? Email hello@thepetrolprice.com.