Market Data

What Sets the On-Highway Diesel Price: How EIA Builds the $4.58 Weekly Number

A plain-English breakdown of how the U.S. retail diesel benchmark is measured, what sits inside every gallon, and why the pump price is not the crude price.

On-highway diesel, retail is the EIA's volume-weighted average U.S. pump price for No. 2 ultra-low-sulfur diesel, including all taxes, published every Monday, and it currently sits at $4.58/gal as of Jul 6, 2026, with no prior-year reading archived yet. It is the single most consequential fuel number in American logistics: most freight fuel surcharges, carrier rate models, and fleet budgets key off this one weekly print.

How the Monday number is built

Every Monday the Energy Information Administration surveys a sample of retail diesel outlets across the country and publishes a volume-weighted average, stations that sell more gallons count for more, covering No. 2 ultra-low-sulfur diesel with all federal, state, and local taxes included. It is a delivered, at-the-pump price, not a wholesale rack or spot quote, which is exactly why the freight industry adopted it as the neutral referee for fuel surcharges: neither shipper nor carrier controls it, it updates weekly, and it is free. EIA also publishes regional breakouts, which matter because state taxes and distribution costs put the coasts well above the Gulf.

The cost stack in every gallon

The pump price is a stack, not a single market. Crude oil is the foundation, historically around half of the retail price. Refining margin, the crack spread for distillates, typically adds another 15% to 25%, and it swings hard when diesel inventories are tight. Distribution and marketing take a further slice for pipelines, terminals, trucking the fuel itself, and station margin. Taxes sit on top: the federal excise of 24.4 cents per gallon plus state taxes that range from roughly 15 cents to more than 80 cents, averaging near 65 cents combined. This stack is why the pump price is not the crude price: crude can fall while a refining squeeze or tax change holds the retail number up, and vice versa.

U.S. on-highway diesel, retail, Jul 6, 2026: $4.58/gal. Ranged from $4.58 (Jul 6, 2026) to $5.64 (Apr 6, 2026) across the archived history. The latest print sits in the lower third of that range.

The freight industry adopted the EIA Monday print as its referee because neither side controls it: it is volume-weighted, tax-inclusive, and free.

What the print means for a fleet budget

A Class 8 tractor averaging 6.5 mpg over 100,000 miles a year burns about 15,385 gallons. At the current $4.58/gal, that is roughly $70,433 per truck per year, or about $704,330 for a 10-truck fleet, before any discount off retail that a fleet fuel card or bulk contract captures. Because the benchmark is published weekly, a budget built on it is never more than seven days stale; the fleets that get hurt are the ones that budget off last year's average and let fifty-two Monday prints drift away from the plan.

Put your routes, mpg, and the current diesel print into the route miles cost calculator to see fuel per lane at today's benchmark. Cost your lanes at the live price

Published 2026-07-13.