WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Taxes double the price of petrol for Australian consumers.
OUR VERDICT
False. Tax accounts for about 31 per cent of the pump price.
AAP FACTCHECK - Australians don't pay double the actual price of petrol just because of tax, contrary to a social media claim.
When the claim was made in March, tax accounted for roughly one-third of the average price at the pump.
The government has since temporarily more than halved the fuel excise tax.
Global petrol prices have spiked due to fears of oil shortages following the outbreak of the US-Israel war with Iran on February 28, 2026.
The claim was made by a Canadian social media user in a March 19 Facebook video where he speaks beside a petrol bowser.
"In Australia you pay double the actual price of gas just for tax, so the Australian government doubles the price of gas," the man says.
"Fuel is up 30 per cent in Australia, you double that. It's crazy, bro.
"It's $2.15 a litre, these guys are paying over $8 a gallon in Australia right now, so that is approximately double what the US is paying."
The user did not respond to AAP FactCheck's email requesting evidence for the claim.
The claim is false. At the time, Australian taxes accounted for roughly a third of the total pump price, not half.
Australians pay two taxes when they fill up at the service station: petrol excise and GST.
Petrol excise is indexed to inflation twice a year and was 52.6 cents per litre in March, according to Australian Taxation Office (ATO) guidance.
Sales tax (GST) is applied at a flat rate of 10 per cent of the total purchase price.
The national average unleaded petrol price was $2.38 a litre in the week ending March 22, 2026, according to an Australian Institute of Petroleum (AIP) report (page 8).
At that rate, tax would account for about 74.2 cents a litre: 52.6 cents in excise plus 21.6 cents in GST.
This means tax then accounted for 31 per cent of the price Australians pay at the bowser.
On March 30, the government announced it was halving the excise tax on fuel for three months, reducing it to 26.3 cents per litre.
On April 2, it announced it would reduce this by an additional 5.7 cents per litre.
Fuel is more expensive in Australia than in the US, but not as much as claimed.
Australians pay about $A9 per gallon (3.78 litres) on average, which is about 54 per cent more than the $US4.10 ($A5.85) per gallon that Americans paid in the week to March 23, according to US Energy Information Administration data.
But while Australians are paying more, an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) report shows tax doesn't account for the entire price gap.
Taxes accounted for 38 per cent of the retail price of fuel in the December 2025 quarter, an ACCC report (p1) said, while the international cost of refined petrol accounted for 42 per cent of the price, with "other costs and margins" accounting for the remaining 20 per cent.
Petrol excise rates have risen by only one cent since then, ATO data shows, proving that the recent price hike is not due to taxes.
In fact, the proportion of petrol price that is caused by tax actually dropped as prices rose.
Tax accounted for 40 per cent of the price when petrol was $1.71 per litre in the week ending February 22, 2026 (p7).
At $2.38 per litre, tax accounts for less than a third.
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