The full fuel excise rate returned to 53.7 c/L on 3 August 2026. That is a rise of 17.1 c/L of excise, and up to about 18.8 c/L at the pump once GST is added, or around $12.23 on a 65 L tank, if retailers pass it on in full. This is a scheduled tax change, and it does not itself affect fuel supply.
Excise is levied on the wholesale price and gazetted before GST. Most coverage quotes the 17.1 c/L excise rise. GST at 10 per cent applies on top of it, so the effect at the bowser is about ten per cent more again.
The excise rate through July, and the full rate from 3 August 2026. Both are the gazetted wholesale rates, before GST.
The excise rise. This is the figure almost all of the coverage quotes.
GST at 10 per cent applies to the pump price, excise included, so the excise rise is grossed up by 1.10 on its way to the bowser. That is the number a driver actually pays.
The tax rise is a fact. The retail effect is not a promise: excise is paid upstream, so the pump figures here are an upper bound, reached if retailers pass the rise on in full. Timing varies as sites work through stock bought at the old rate.
The August step at the pump, by tank size. A 65 L tank is the figure used across this site, so the numbers here match the ones on the homepage and the price pages.
| Tank size | Extra per fill |
|---|---|
| 40 L | $7.52 |
| 50 L | $9.41 |
| 65 L (typical family car) | $12.23 |
| 80 L | $15.05 |
Each figure is the pump-side step of about 18.8 c/L applied to that tank size. They are upper bounds on the same terms as above: full pass-through, and timing that varies by site.
Half of it did. The relief came back in two steps, not one, and the second was the larger of the two because it also absorbed the August indexation.
Excise cut to 20.6 c/L, the deep cut.
Excise rose 16.0 c/L to 36.6 c/L, about 17.6 c/L at the pump. The relief was extended by a month at half the original discount rather than ending outright.
Excise rose 17.1 c/L to 53.7 c/L, about 18.8 c/L at the pump. Larger than the July step, because this one reverses the rest of the relief and absorbs the August CPI indexation at the same time.
Fuel excise is indexed to the consumer price index every February and August, so 53.7 c/L is not a permanent number either.
Indexation is why the two steps back were unequal. The August adjustment landed on the same day the relief ended, so the 3 August step carried both: the remaining 16.0 c/L of relief being reversed, plus the indexation increase on top of it. The next scheduled indexation is February 2027, and it will move the rate again by whatever the relevant CPI movement turns out to be.
This is a scheduled tax change, and it does not itself affect fuel supply. Buying fuel as you normally would is the right response to it.
The excise change moves the price, not the volume of fuel in the country. We track Australian supply separately, and a rate change on the tax line has no bearing on it. What the change does affect is what you pay, so if you want to see how much of it reached the pump in your state, the price pages carry the live figures.
See what happened to prices →Ways to cut your fuel costs →
Source: ATO excise duty ratesExcise duty rates for fuel and petroleum productsHow we measure this