Independent fuel reserve & pricing transparency for Australia.
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Last reviewed: April 2026
Australian fuel prices are a perennial topic of public frustration. Prices vary dramatically between states, between cities and regional areas, and even between stations on the same street. This guide explains the key factors that determine what you pay at the pump, how Australia’s fuel price reporting systems work, and how AussieOilWatch aggregates this data to help drivers and researchers make sense of the market.
When you fill up at a petrol station, the price per litre is composed of several distinct components. Understanding these helps explain why prices change and why they differ between locations.
The single largest component of the retail price is the cost of the refined fuel itself, which is determined by international commodity markets. For petrol, the key benchmark is Singapore Mogas 95(often referred to as Singapore Tapis). For diesel, it is Singapore Gasoil 10ppm. These benchmarks reflect the wholesale price of refined fuel in the Asia-Pacific region, where Australia sources most of its imports.
Because these benchmarks are priced in US dollars, the AUD/USD exchange rate directly affects the landed cost of fuel in Australia. A weaker Australian dollar makes imported fuel more expensive, even if the USD benchmark price has not changed.
The Australian Government levies an excise duty on fuel, indexed to CPI twice yearly (February and August). As of early 2026, the excise on unleaded petrol and diesel is approximately 50 cents per litre. This is a flat rate applied regardless of the wholesale price, which means excise represents a larger proportion of the total cost when oil prices are low and a smaller proportion when they are high.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) of 10% is applied to the total retail price, including excise. This means GST is effectively a tax on a tax — a frequently criticised aspect of Australian fuel taxation.
The wholesale margin covers the cost of importing, storing, and distributing fuel from the import terminal to the service station. The retail margin covers the operating costs of the station itself. These margins vary between operators and locations, and are a key source of price differences between stations in the same area. The ACCC regularly monitors fuel margins as part of its fuel price monitoring role.
Most major Australian capital cities experience a well-documented fuel price cycle, characterised by a sharp increase in prices (typically mid-week) followed by a gradual decline over several days before the next spike. The cycle length varies by city:
The ACCC has extensively studied these cycles. The general advice for consumers is to fill up at the bottom of the cycle (when prices are at their lowest before the next spike) and to use fuel price comparison tools — like the state government apps or AussieOilWatch — to time purchases.
Several Australian states and territories require fuel retailers to report their prices to a central government system. This data is then made available to consumers through apps and public APIs. The landscape of fuel price reporting across Australia is as follows:
NSW operates the FuelCheck scheme, which requires all fuel retailers in NSW to report price changes within 30 minutes of them taking effect. The FuelCheck API provides station-level pricing data for multiple fuel types. ACT prices are included in the NSW feed.
QLD operates a mandatory fuel price reporting scheme. Retailers must report prices within 30 minutes of a change. The data is available through a public API that AussieOilWatch polls every 30 minutes.
SA has mandatory fuel price reporting with prices published through the government fuel portal. The data covers all major fuel types and is updated as retailers report changes.
WA’s FuelWatch scheme is unique in Australia. It requires retailers to set next-day prices by 2pm and hold them for 24 hours from 6am the following day. This means prices are published a day ahead, giving consumers time to find the cheapest option. The FuelWatch data is available as an RSS feed that AussieOilWatch parses.
The NT Government publishes fuel price data through a government portal. Coverage includes Darwin and major regional centres.
Tasmania publishes fuel price data through a government-operated service. AussieOilWatch polls this feed alongside other state APIs.
Victoria publishes fuel price data through the Fair Fuel API operated by Service Victoria. Station-level data is available for all major fuel types and is refreshed on the same 30-minute cycle as other states. AussieOilWatch includes Victorian stations in both the comparison tool and the national heatmap.
Fuel prices in regional and remote Australia are consistently higher than in metropolitan areas. Several factors contribute to this gap:
AussieOilWatch’s comparison tool allows users to directly compare prices between any two areas at the state, council, or town level — making these regional disparities visible and quantifiable.
AussieOilWatch polls each state government API every 30 minutes and aggregates the results into a unified dataset. The aggregation process involves:
If a state API is temporarily unavailable, the most recently successful snapshot for that state is served as a fallback. The dashboard displays a freshness timestamp so users can always see how recent the data is.
