Petrol has gone from about 136p a litre in February to about 175p in October. Diesel has gone from 148p to a round 200p. When prices jump like that, you'll often hear someone say the government must be raking it in.
So is it? We worked it out, using our own pump prices and the Government's official figures for how much fuel the country actually buys.
The short answer
Yes, but not in the way most people think.
Fuel duty hasn't gone up at all. It's the same 52.95p a litre it was in February. The extra money is all coming from VAT, because VAT is a percentage of the price, and the price has gone up a lot.
Across the UK, that extra VAT works out at nearly £10 million a day.
Two taxes, working very differently
There are two taxes in every litre you buy, and it's worth knowing how each one works, because they behave completely differently when prices change.
Fuel duty is a fixed amount per litre. Right now it's 52.95p for both petrol and diesel, and it's been at that level all year. It doesn't care whether a litre costs 130p or 200p. The Government had planned to start putting it back up in September, but in May that rise was pushed back to January, so it hasn't moved.
VAT is 20%, and it's charged on top of everything else, including the duty. That means it's always exactly one sixth of the price you see on the pump. When the price goes up, VAT goes up with it, automatically.
What that means per litre
Here's the tax in a litre of each fuel, February compared with October:
| Petrol in Feb | Petrol in Oct | Diesel in Feb | Diesel in Oct | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average pump price | 135.8p | 174.8p | 148.2p | 200.0p |
| Fuel duty | 52.95p | 52.95p | 52.95p | 52.95p |
| VAT | 22.6p | 29.1p | 24.7p | 33.3p |
| Total tax | 75.6p | 82.1p | 77.6p | 86.3p |
So on every litre of petrol, the Treasury is now collecting 6.5p more than it was in February. On diesel it's 8.6p more.
On a 50-litre fill, that's £3.25 more VAT on petrol and £4.32 more on diesel, compared with the same tank back in February.
Here's the twist: tax is now a smaller share of what you pay
This surprised us. Even though the tax per litre has gone up, it now makes up a smaller slice of the price.
Out of every £1 you spend on petrol:
| February | October | |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel duty | 39p | 30p |
| VAT | 17p | 17p |
| Everything else | 44p | 53p |
"Everything else" is the fuel itself, refining, delivery, and the retailer's costs and margin. That's the part that's grown. Because duty stays fixed while the price climbs, it shrinks as a share of the total. VAT always stays at a sixth.
Diesel tells the same story. Tax was 52% of the price in February and it's 43% now.
So it's true the Government is collecting more. But it's not where most of your extra money is going. Of the 39p a litre that petrol has gone up, 6.5p is extra VAT. The other 32.5p is going to everyone else in the chain.
How much is that across the whole country?
This is where the numbers get big, because the UK uses a lot of fuel.
HMRC publishes exactly how much fuel is released for sale each month, and it's a reliable figure: the duty it collects lines up almost to the penny with the litres it reports. In 2025, the UK got through 18.3 billion litres of petrol and 27.7 billion litres of diesel. That's about 50 million litres of petrol and 76 million litres of diesel every single day.
Put that together with the extra VAT per litre:
| Extra VAT per litre | Litres a day | Extra VAT a day | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Petrol | 6.5p | 50m | £3.3m |
| Diesel | 8.6p | 76m | £6.6m |
| Total | 126m | £9.8m |
That's nearly £10 million a day, or about £300 million a month, more than the Treasury would collect at February's prices. If prices stayed this high for a whole year, it would add up to around £3.6 billion.
Fuel duty, by contrast, brings in about £67 million a day, and that hasn't changed at all. HMRC's own figures show duty receipts of about £2 billion a month both before and after the price rise.
A couple of honest caveats
Our £10 million a day is the extra VAT charged at the pump. The amount the Treasury actually keeps is lower, and here's why.
Businesses that are VAT-registered can claim back the VAT on fuel they buy for work. That covers a lot of diesel, because lorries, vans and company cars burn a big share of it. So a chunk of that extra VAT gets paid at the pump and then handed back. We can't say exactly how much, but the real gain to the Treasury is somewhere below our figure.
We've also used 2025's volumes. There's no sign yet that people are buying much less fuel since prices rose. HMRC's figures for spring 2026 are much the same as a year earlier. But if higher prices do put people off driving, the volumes would dip a little.
So, is the Government profiting from high fuel prices?
A bit, yes. Higher prices mean more VAT, without anyone having to vote for a tax rise.
But it's not the main reason your fill-up costs more. Duty hasn't moved, VAT is a fixed share, and the biggest part of the increase is going to the rest of the supply chain. If you're angry about the price at the pump, the tax is only a small part of the story.
What you can control is where you fill up. In most towns there's a gap of 8 to 10p a litre between the cheapest and dearest station nearby, which is more than the entire rise in VAT since February. Look up your town and see who's cheapest today.
How we did this: pump prices are the UK monthly averages from every price reported to the Government's Fuel Finder scheme (October is the month so far). VAT is one sixth of the VAT-inclusive pump price. Fuel duty is the main rate of 52.95p a litre. Fuel volumes are HMRC's Hydrocarbon Oils Bulletin figures for petrol and diesel released for consumption in calendar year 2025, including blended biofuels. You're welcome to quote any of these figures; a link back is all we ask.