Fuel Price Chart Ireland

Live Petrol & Diesel Price Chart

The chart below plots the average petrol and diesel price across Ireland, day by day, in euro per litre. Use it to read the direction of travel: when the lines climb, every forecourt tends to follow within days; when they fall, the cheapest stations cut first. The figures are updated continuously, so the graph reflects the most recent picture of the Irish market.

How to Read the Chart

Two series are plotted against the same dates. The green line is the average petrol price and the slate line is the average diesel price, both in euro per litre. A few things are worth knowing as you read it:

• The gap between the lines is the petrol-to-diesel spread. Through 2026 diesel has sat above petrol — usually 10 to 15 cent per litre — so the slate line tracks above the green one.
• Steep climbs mark periods when wholesale costs jumped. The sharpest rise in the dataset runs through March, when diesel pushed above the €2.00 per litre mark.
• The average hides the spread. On any given day the cheapest forecourt can sit 10 to 15 cent under the average and the dearest can sit well above it. That is the gap the live map exists to exploit — a chart tells you the trend, the map tells you where to fill up.

Recent Daily Averages

The most recent daily average petrol and diesel prices in the dataset are shown below. The newest entries appear first. Figures are in euro per litre.

What Drove the 2026 Trend

The shape of the chart is dominated by one event: the spring 2026 oil shock. In mid-February the average diesel price sat around €1.74 per litre and petrol around €1.75 — broadly flat, with day-to-day wobble of a cent or two. From early March, escalating tension in the oil-producing Gulf region pushed Brent crude sharply higher, and Irish forecourts reacted within days.

By the third week of March, the average diesel price had broken through €2.00 per litre and kept climbing, peaking above €2.20 per litre in the final week of the month. Petrol followed the same path with a smaller jump, topping out around €1.99 per litre. Diesel held above the €2.00 per litre line through almost all of March before the market began to ease back through April as wholesale costs cooled, settling diesel back toward €1.97 per litre.

The takeaway from the trend is simple: forecourt prices move fast on the way up and more slowly on the way down. When wholesale costs fall, the saving does not reach every station at once — the keenest forecourts cut first, which is exactly when comparing prices near you pays off the most.

The Tax Component of the Price

A large share of every litre you pay is not the fuel itself — it is tax. Excise duty (mineral oil tax), the carbon component, the NORA levy, and VAT layered on top together make up well over half of the pump price of petrol and a large share of diesel. That is why the lines on this chart never fall as far as the underlying crude price might suggest: the tax floor stays roughly fixed in cents per litre while only the wholesale portion swings with the oil market.

We break down exactly where your money goes — the before-tax price, excise, carbon, NORA, and VAT, per litre, for both petrol and diesel — in the interactive tax breakdown on our homepage. See the full per-litre tax breakdown to understand how much of the price on this chart is fuel and how much is the State.

Is Diesel More Expensive Than Petrol?

For most of 2026, yes. The diesel line on the chart sits above the petrol line by roughly 10 to 15 cent per litre. This reverses the historic pattern, where diesel was usually the cheaper of the two at Irish forecourts. The shift reflects tighter diesel refining margins worldwide and steady demand from freight, agriculture, and home-heating-adjacent uses. Whether that gap holds is one of the clearest things to watch as new data is added to the chart.

How Current Is the Chart?

The graph and the table on this page are updated continuously as new daily averages come in, so you are always reading a current view of the Irish market rather than a stale snapshot. For the price at one specific forecourt — the number that actually decides where you fill up — the live map is the place to look: every pin carries the most recent price reported at that station, and you can filter to petrol or diesel and sort by what is cheapest near you.

Frequently Asked Questions