Gas Prices by Year, Adjusted for Inflation (1978-2025)

In September 2026 dollars the most expensive full year for U.S. gasoline since 1978 was 2012, at $5.42 a gallon, ahead of 2011 ($5.36) and 2008 ($5.19). The 2022 average of $4.192 is the highest in nominal dollars, but adjusted it ranks 8th of 48 years at $4.83. The 2025 average was $3.55, which took 6.5 minutes of average hourly pay per gallon.

One table, one set of dollars, one wage measure runs through the whole record. What a gallon is made of is in the gasoline price breakdown; why the same gallon costs more in another state is in why gas prices differ by state; and how fast pump prices follow crude both ways is in rockets and feathers.

Which dollars these are, and how the adjustment works

An inflation-adjusted price answers one question: what would a buyer in a given year have had to pay if that year’s price were stated in the money of another date? Every adjusted figure here uses the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), all items, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted, BLS series CUUR0000SA0. The target is September 2026, when the index stood at 336.940, the latest month the Bureau of Labor Statistics had published when this page was checked on October 23, 2026. The formula is the one used in every deflator: the price in the old year, multiplied by the target index, divided by the index of the old year.

Take 1981, one of the highest years in the table. The all-grades price was $1.353 and the annual average CPI-U was 90.9. So $1.353 × 336.940 ÷ 90.9 = $5.015, or about $5.02. Take 2025: $3.396 × 336.940 ÷ 321.943 = $3.554. The 2025 adjustment is small because the base-month index is only 4.7 percent above the 2025 annual average.

Two further choices are made for you here. The price series is the EIA Monthly Energy Review Table 9.4 all-grades gasoline price, U.S. city average, MSN MGUCUUS, because it is the only gasoline series that is continuous from 1978. The wage series is BLS CEU0500000008, average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees on private payrolls, not seasonally adjusted, which starts in 1964. Both are annual averages.

The full table, 1978 to 2025

Read the fourth column against the second. The adjusted column falls for long runs even when pump prices feel high: seven straight years from 1982 to 1988, and four straight from 2013 to 2016. 16 of the 48 years were above $4.00 a gallon in September 2026 dollars, the last of them 2023.

Five eras in the real price

1978 to 1985: a high plateau

The series opens at $3.37 in 1978, jumps to $4.99 in 1980 and $5.02 in 1981, and only then starts to slide. The era averages $4.21, but the average hides the shape: the real price was still $3.75 in 1985, then dropped to $2.86 in 1986, a one-year fall of 24 percent.

1986 to 2003: eighteen cheap years

The long stretch from 1986 to 2003 averages $2.79 and takes 6.3 minutes of pay per gallon. The low is 1998 at $2.30, or 5.1 minutes, the cheapest gallon in the table by both measures. In nominal dollars 1998 was $1.115; the lowest weekly regular price since 1990 is $0.907 on February 22, 1999 (Table 5).

2004 to 2014: the plateau that moved the baseline

From $3.43 in 2004, the real price rose almost every year to $5.19 in 2008, fell to $3.77 in 2009, and then returned to the highs: $5.36 in 2011 and $5.42 in 2012. The era averages $4.61. From 1998 to 2012 the nominal price multiplied by 3.31, while the adjusted price multiplied by 2.35. The difference between those two multipliers is the general rise in prices over fourteen years.

2015 to 2021: the reset, then the rebound

The real price fell to $3.57 in 2015 and $3.09 in 2016, ranged from $3.39 to $3.75 across 2017 to 2019, dropped to $2.92 in 2020 and recovered to $3.90 in 2021. The era averages $3.45.

2022 to 2025: one spike, then a slow descent

The 2022 average of $4.83 was the first above $4.00 since 2014, followed by $4.17 in 2023, $3.84 in 2024 and $3.55 in 2025. The era averages $4.10, and every year after 2022 was below the one before it in the adjusted column.

Counting in working time

A price in dollars of any year ignores that pay changes too. The last column of Table 1 divides the price by average hourly earnings, so it reads as minutes of work to earn one gallon. It is a crude lens: the earnings series covers production and nonsupervisory workers, not households, and it is before tax. But it moves the ranking, and it moves it in a useful direction.

By this measure 1998 is still the cheapest year at 5.1 minutes, and the dearest are 2012 (11.2), 2008 and 2011 (both about 11.0) and 1981 (10.9). The 2025 figure of 6.5 minutes is close to the 2017 figure (6.7) and well under the 2022 figure of 9.1. In the 1986 to 2003 era the average was 6.3 minutes; in 2004 to 2014 it was 9.6.

Over the whole 47 years gasoline rose 5.21 times, a hair above prices in general (4.94 times) and slightly below pay (5.33 times). Since 1998 the gap is wider: gasoline 3.05 times against 1.98 for prices and 2.41 for pay. The first row says the long-run price of a gallon has tracked the economy; the second says that starting from the cheapest year in the table makes gasoline look like the outlier.

The biggest one-year swings

Table 1 can hide how violent the year-to-year moves are. Table 3a lists the five largest one-year rises and falls in the real price, measured between consecutive annual averages. The 2021 rise is the largest, and it follows the 2020 fall, so part of it is recovery from the 2020 low.

The largest rise is 2021 (+33.5 percent) and the largest fall is 2009 (-27.4 percent). Both come from the annual average, which dilutes a shock that lasts only part of a year: the weekly table below shows swings that are sharper still.

A year of driving, priced four ways

To see what these prices mean for a household, take an assumed driver: 12,000 miles a year at 25 miles per gallon, which is 480 gallons. Those inputs are assumptions chosen for round numbers, not national averages. Table 3b prices the same 480 gallons at four annual prices from Table 1 and then divides the nominal bill by that year’s hourly earnings.

In 1998 the nominal bill was $535, or $1,106 in September 2026 dollars and 41.1 hours of pay; in 2012 it was $1,774 nominal, $2,603 adjusted and 89.9 hours. The 2025 bill of $1,706 in September 2026 dollars sits $897 below the 2012 adjusted bill, and the hours column shows the same ordering: 52.0 hours against 89.9.

Before 1978: a different gasoline

The all-grades series starts in 1978 because earlier years exist only for leaded regular (MER Table 9.4, MSN RLUCUUS), a product that no longer retails in the United States for road use. Table 4 converts a handful of its years with the same formula so that readers who ask about 1970 or 1949 have an answer, but the numbers are not a continuation of the 1978 series.

The 1973 to 1974 step is the visible one: $0.388 to $0.532, up 37 percent in nominal dollars and from $2.94 to $3.64 in September 2026 dollars.

Peaks and troughs by the week

Annual averages smooth out the extremes. The EIA weekly series for regular, all formulations (EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG), begins in August 1990 and gives the extremes. Each weekly price below is adjusted with the CPI-U of its own month, because an annual CPI would mismatch a mid-year price.

The nominal record, $5.006 on June 13, 2022, is $5.69 in September 2026 dollars. The July 7, 2008 week, $4.114 nominal, is $6.30 in the same dollars, about $0.61 more. That is the clearest case on this page where the headline record and the adjusted record are different weeks. At the other end, the April 27, 2020 low of $1.773 is $2.33 in September 2026 dollars, while the 1999 low of $0.907 is $1.86.

2026 so far

The EIA monthly regular price started 2026 at $2.809 in January and reached $4.479 in May, a rise of 59 percent in four months. The simple mean of the nine monthly prices published so far is $3.815, against $3.097 for the 2025 annual average. EIA’s October Short-Term Energy Outlook says retail gasoline and diesel prices rose sharply in September; the STEO reading guide explains how to read that report.

The adjustment barely changes the 2026 story because the CPI moved only 3.6 percent between January and September. In nominal dollars the September figure of $4.355 is above the 2022 annual average of $3.951 for regular. In real terms the order reverses: the 2022 regular average is $4.55 in September 2026 dollars, above September's $4.36. Each comparison here uses the regular series only; Table 7 shows how far it sits from the all-grades series.

Why two EIA series give two answers

The all-grades city-average series of Table 1 and the regular all-formulations series of the EIA weekly survey are both official, and they do not agree. Premium and midgrade cost more than regular, so an all-grades average sits above a regular-only average. The surveys also differ in how they are collected. This page does not separate those two causes. Over 1992 to 2025 the all-grades figure averaged 10.2 cents above the regular one.

If you want the figure that matches a pump sign for the cheapest grade, use the regular series: the 2025 average is $3.097, or $3.24 in September 2026 dollars. If you want a single continuous history back to 1978, use the all-grades series. Do not splice the two.

Price versus burden: taxes and the car

A gallon’s price is not the cost of a trip. Two things sit between them. The first is the car: the cost of one mile is the price divided by miles per gallon. As arithmetic only, a vehicle at 20 miles per gallon pays $0.178 a mile at the 2025 real price and $0.271 at the 2012 real price; a vehicle at 30 miles per gallon pays $0.118 and $0.181. The mileage figures are assumptions, not data, but the proportion is exact: a one-third fuel-economy gain offsets a one-third price rise.

The second is tax. The federal excise tax has stayed at 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993 (rate as listed in the state tax guide). Because the rate is fixed in cents, inflation has eroded it: 18.4 cents with the 1993 annual CPI-U of 144.5 is 42.9 cents in September 2026 dollars, and the same 18.4 cents today buys the equivalent of 7.9 cents of 1993 money. That is one reason the tax share of a gallon has fallen as nominal prices rose; the breakdown guide shows the current split.

Which measure answers which question

To rebuild any row for a different base, take the CPI-U for your target month from BLS series CUUR0000SA0, divide it by the CPI-U of the old year, and multiply the old price by the result. For the current weekly values and their dates, the city gas price map is the page to keep open while you do.

Data and sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review Table 9.4, series MGUCUUS (all grades, annual 1978 to 2025) and RLUCUUS (leaded regular, 1949 to 1976), checked October 23, 2026. EIA, U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices, series EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG, annual, monthly and weekly, release of October 20, 2026, checked October 23, 2026. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U all items, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted, series CUUR0000SA0, annual averages and monthly values through September 2026 (336.940), checked October 23, 2026. BLS, Current Employment Statistics, total private production and nonsupervisory employees, series CEU0500000008 (average hourly earnings), annual averages, checked October 23, 2026. EIA, Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026 (retail gasoline and diesel prices rose sharply in September), checked October 23, 2026. The adjusted prices, minutes of work, era averages, growth multiples and tax conversions are this page’s arithmetic.