Methodology: how FuelPriceAtlas collects and calculates fuel prices

Last updated: 23 October 2026

FuelPriceAtlas does not collect prices itself. We take the official open data that governments and regulators publish, clean it, and turn it into averages, rankings and history that are easy to compare across countries. This page explains how.

1. Sources

Every country uses its own official source (see the table on the About page). Where a country publishes the price of every station, we show station-level data. Where it only publishes averages (for example the European Commission’s Weekly Oil Bulletin for the other EU countries), we show averages only. Austria’s source publishes only the cheapest stations in each area, so we label Austrian averages accordingly.

2. Collection and freshness

• Most sources are imported automatically every hour; some once a day; U.S. and EU averages weekly. Every page shows the date of the data it uses.
• Each station’s latest reported price is kept. A station whose latest price is older than a country-specific limit (from a few days to three weeks, depending on how often stations in that country report) is left out of rankings and averages, so you do not see stale numbers.
• Prices that are clearly impossible (for example a price of zero or far outside the plausible range for that country) are discarded.
• Stations that the source flags as closed are not shown.

3. Averages and rankings

• A national, regional or town average is the simple average of the current prices of the stations in that area that report that fuel. It is not weighted by sales volume, because sales data are not public.
• “Cheapest” lists show the lowest current price per fuel. Prices that are not current are not included.
• Towns, postcode districts and brands appear in rankings only when enough stations report prices for the average to mean something; small areas are not indexed for search engines.
• When countries with different currencies are compared (for example the United Kingdom against the euro area), prices are converted at a recent daily exchange rate and marked as converted. Different countries also tax and report fuel differently, so cross-country comparisons are indicative.

4. History and trends

We store a daily average for each country, fuel, town and brand. Price changes over 7 and 30 days compare the current average with the one from that many days ago. For countries where we started collecting data recently, history begins on the day of the first import, so short-term changes appear only once enough days have been collected. We do not back-fill history from other sources.

5. Reports and news

Weekly and monthly reports are generated automatically from the daily data and follow the same rules. Price-move news (for example a significant weekly change or a multi-week high or low) is generated from the same data when preset thresholds are crossed. Editorial news and guides are written by people and checked against the sources they cite; see the editorial policy.

6. Limits

Prices are those reported by station operators and can change between updates. Some stations report late or not at all. Route distances and trip costs are estimates. Always check the price at the pump. If you spot a problem, please contact us.