Natural Gas Price History by Year, Adjusted for Inflation

Henry Hub natural gas averaged $3.52 per MMBtu in 2025, which ranks 24th of the 29 years since 1997 once inflation is removed. The highest year in 2025 dollars is 2005 at $14.33, the lowest is 2024 at $2.25, and the 29-year average is $6.12 in 2025 dollars against $4.09 in the dollars of the day.

Inflation reorders the list. In the dollars of the day 2008 is first at $8.86 and 2005 second at $8.69; in 2025 dollars 2005 leads and 2008 follows. The 2022 average of $6.45 is 5th in nominal terms and 9th in real terms, at $7.10. The same correction changes the daily record: the highest day in the EIA series is $30.72 on January 23, 2026, but restated in 2025 dollars the day of February 25, 2003, at $18.48 then, is worth $32.49 against $30.41 for the 2026 peak.

A household does not pay the Henry Hub price directly. The EIA residential average in 2025 was $15.34 per thousand cubic feet, 4.21 times the benchmark converted to the same unit, and that multiple has ranged from 1.41 in 2005 to 6.39 in 2024. Over the same 29 years the real household price stayed between $12.93 and $21.93 per Mcf in 2025 dollars, a narrower band than the benchmark's $2.25 to $14.33 per MMBtu.

Every year from 1997 to 2025, in two kinds of dollars

EIA publishes the Henry Hub spot price, from Refinitiv data, as a daily series that begins on January 7, 1997. The annual figure in Table 1 is EIA's own annual average; recomputing it from the 7,280 daily prices through December 2025 reproduces EIA's value to the cent in all 29 years. The CPI column is the average of the monthly BLS CPI-U indexes for the year. The real price is the nominal price times 321.943 divided by that index, and the last two columns give each year's rank, 1 being the highest.

The nominal line has two humps, 2005 to 2008 and 2022, and one long floor. The real line has one hump and a floor that sits lower and lasts longer. 2003 to 2008 is the only run of consecutive years above $5.00 in the dollars of the day: its six annual averages run from $5.47 to $8.86. Only 7 of the 29 years average above $5.00, and the only one after 2008 is 2022. And 2025, at $3.52 in the dollars of the day, is above 2021's $3.89 and below 2022's $6.45, yet 5 years in the table are lower than it in real terms (2016, 2019, 2020, 2023, 2024).

The deflator and its base year

Every real figure on this page uses the BLS Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, all items, US city average, not seasonally adjusted. It is the series the diesel and gasoline history pages on this site use, so the three fuel price histories can be compared directly. A year's index is the mean of the monthly values. For 2025 BLS published eleven: the monthly figure for October 2025 is marked unavailable in the BLS database because of the 2025 lapse in appropriations. The 2025 base is therefore the mean of eleven months, 321.943, and no value is interpolated.

The base year is a choice of unit, not of conclusion. Restating in 2025 dollars multiplies each nominal price by 321.943 over the year's index: 2.006 for 1997, 1.649 for 2005, 1.495 for 2008, 1.100 for 2022, and 1.000 for 2025. Moving to September 2026 dollars, the last column of Table 1, multiplies every real value by the same 1.0466 (336.940 over 321.943), so the order of the years does not change. The September 2026 index is the latest BLS value in the database on the check date.

An annual-average index suits an annual-average price. A calendar-year gas price is spread over twelve months, and so is the index. For single days the index of the day's own month is used instead, and that is stated wherever it is used. October 2025 has no index, and October 2026 has none yet, so trading days in those two months are left out of the real daily rankings. The annual rankings are not affected, since each annual mean is built from the months that exist.

The CPI-U measures a basket of consumer goods. It is not a gas-specific cost index, and a producer or power plant might prefer a producer price index. The BLS series is used here because the result is meant for a household or a reader comparing fuel prices across the site; other deflators, such as the BEA price index for personal consumption expenditures, would give somewhat different real values and are not used.

Ranking the years: what inflation reorders

Table 2 lists the ten highest and six lowest years in 2025 dollars, with each year's nominal rank beside it. A positive shift means the year ranks higher in real terms than in nominal terms.

The top of the nominal list is 2008, 2005, 2007, 2006, 2022, and the top of the real list is 2005, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2004. The same four years, 2005 to 2008, fill the top four places either way, and only the first two swap: 2008 leads in the dollars of the day and 2005 in 2025 dollars, because the index rose 1.102-fold between the two annual averages. The big mover is 2022. It is fifth in the dollars of the day and ninth in 2025 dollars: the CPI-U stood at 292.7 in 2022 against 195.3 in 2005, so to equal the real $14.33 of 2005 the 2022 average would have had to be $13.02 in the dollars of 2022. It was $6.45. Outside 2000 to 2008, only 2022 and 2010 reach the top ten in real terms.

At the other end, the lowest nominal year is 2020 at $2.03, and the lowest real year is 2024 at $2.25. The cheapest five years in 2025 dollars are 2024, 2020, 2023, 2019, 2016, and 3 of them fall in 2020 to 2025. 2025 is sixth lowest in real terms, with 23 years higher. Ranked nominally, 2025 sits 16th, so inflation costs it 8 places, the largest fall of any year in the table. The cause is the index alone: a price of $3.52 in 2025 buys less than the same $3.52 did in 2005, since the CPI-U averaged 1.65 times its 2005 level.

Four eras, averaged

The history falls into four stretches that behave differently, and Table 3 averages each with the household price alongside.

From 1997 to 2002 the benchmark averaged $5.80 in 2025 dollars. From 2003 to 2009 it averaged $10.67, a 1.84-fold rise. From 2010 to 2019 it fell back to $4.53, and in 2020 to 2025 it averaged $3.78, 65 percent below the 2003 to 2009 block. Within 2010 to 2019 only 2010, at rank 10, reaches the top ten of the real ranking.

2020 was the lowest nominal year; 2024 was the lowest real one

EIA reached the same finding in a January 8, 2025 note: the 2024 Henry Hub average was the lowest annual average in inflation-adjusted dollars ever reported, and the four lowest daily prices in inflation-adjusted terms also occurred in 2024. The table agrees. 2024 comes out at $2.25 in 2025 dollars, $0.28 below 2020's $2.53, although 2020 has the lower nominal average ($2.03 against $2.19). Inflation is the whole difference: the CPI-U averaged 313.7 in 2024 against 258.8 in 2020.

The daily record points the same way. The lowest daily price in the dollars of the day is $1.05 on December 4, 1998; the next lowest are $1.21 on December 3, 1998, November 8, 2024 and November 11, 2024. Restated in 2025 dollars with each day's own month, the six lowest days of the whole series are all in 2024, the lowest at $1.23. Counting trading days at or below $2.00, 2020 has 150 and 2024 has 104; the next highest count is 78 days, in 1998. Across the 29 years the price was at or below $2.00 on 567 trading days, and 254 of them came in 2020 and 2024.

A low annual average does not mean a calm year. 2024 contains the $13.20 day of January 12, 2024, preceded by $3.15 the trading day before, and 2020's highest price is just $3.14, on October 26, 2020.

What a household paid as a multiple of Henry Hub

The EIA's residential series is the average price paid by households for gas delivered to private dwellings, in dollars per thousand cubic feet. EIA states that published residential prices are total prices paid by end-users, inclusive of all tax, delivery, commodity, demand and other charges. Henry Hub is a spot price at one hub in Louisiana, in dollars per MMBtu, before any of those. To compare the two, Henry Hub is converted to dollars per Mcf at 1,036 Btu per cubic foot, the EIA 2025 average for gas delivered to consumers, and the same factor is used for every year. EIA's series for that heat content starts in 2003 and ran between 1,022 and 1,038 Btu per cubic foot through 2025, so using each year's own EIA figure for 2003 to 2025 would move any multiple by at most 1.4 percent and change only two ranks, with 1997 and 2011 trading places at 15th and 17th.

The multiple is the residential price divided by the converted Henry Hub price. A multiple of 2 means that for every dollar of benchmark gas the household paid two. The spread is the difference in dollars per Mcf; the last column restates it in 2025 dollars so that the years can be compared.

The multiple is lowest when the benchmark is highest. In 2005 gas at Henry Hub averaged $9.00 per Mcf and households paid $12.70, a multiple of 1.41; 2008 follows at 1.51. The five lowest multiples are 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008. The highest multiple is 2024, at 6.39: households paid $14.50 for gas that cost $2.27 at the hub. 2023 is second at 5.88 and 2020 third at 5.13. The multiple has exceeded 4 in only 4 years, 2020, 2023, 2024, 2025.

The household price fell less than the benchmark, and the spread grew

Averaging the Table 4 rows shows what the multiple hides. Over 2005 to 2008 the household paid $20.99 per Mcf in 2025 dollars, of which $12.73 was the benchmark commodity and $8.26 was everything else. Over 2023 to 2025 the household paid $15.50, of which $2.91 was the benchmark and $12.58 everything else. The benchmark fell by $9.81 per Mcf in real terms between those windows, and the household price fell by $5.49, while the spread rose by $4.33. For each dollar the benchmark fell in real terms, the household price fell by 56 cents.

Across the four eras the real spread goes from $8.40 in 1997 to 2002, to $8.57, to $9.84, to $11.18 in 2020 to 2025. EIA's definition of the residential price lists what sits inside it: tax, delivery, commodity, demand and other charges, with the commodity cost reflecting what the utility paid in earlier months. The EIA data cannot split the spread between those parts, and neither can this table. For the pipeline, local distribution and customer-charge breakdown that separates the city gate price from the residential price, the natural gas bill guide follows the chain with the EIA city gate series for 2005 to 2025.

Timing explains part of the year-to-year behavior. 2023 is the clearest case: Henry Hub fell from $6.45 to $2.53, 61 percent, while the residential price rose from $14.75 to $15.40 per Mcf. EIA explains that retail gas prices lag spot prices because distribution utilities buy gas ahead of need, and because state commissions let them recover gas costs through adjustment charges at set intervals, with additional charges allowed after extreme weather events. The multiple moved from 2.21 to 5.88 in that single year, the largest annual jump in the table. The mechanism is in the purchased gas adjustment guide.

Dated spike days: the single prices behind the annual averages

An annual average is a poor guide to the worst day. In the median year the highest daily price is 1.55 times the annual average, and in 2021 and 2024 it was 6.1 and 6.0 times. Table 5 lists thirteen peak days, one per episode, with the price on the prior trading day, the price ten trading days before and after, and the peak restated in 2025 dollars using the CPI-U of that day's month.

Ranked in the dollars of the day, the three highest days in the whole series are $30.72 on January 23, 2026, $25.01 on January 26, 2026 and $23.86 on February 17, 2021. Ranked in 2025 dollars, the order is February 25, 2003 at $32.49, January 23, 2026 at $30.41 and February 17, 2021 at $29.21. That ranking covers every trading day from January 7, 1997 for which a CPI-U index exists. The February 25, 2003 price was $6.50 above the prior day's $11.98, and $6.25 ten trading days later. The 2005 days show a different shape: December 13, 2005 at $15.39 was only $0.57 above the previous trading day and 1.38 times the price ten sessions earlier, because 2005's price stayed high for weeks. From 1997 through 2025 the series has 151 trading days at or above $10.00: 4 in 2000, 2 in 2001, 4 in 2003, 66 in 2005, 72 in 2008, 2 in 2021, 1 in 2024. 138 of them belong to 2005 and 2008, and 4 more fall in January 2026.

Three episodes with a named cause

February 2021. The Henry Hub price reached $23.86 on February 17, 2021, $11.32 the day before and $3.24 ten trading days earlier, a 7.4-fold rise. EIA's May 2021 note on the month describes a record-breaking cold snap that caused freeze-offs, a seven percent fall in US gross withdrawals from January, the largest monthly drop on record, and a fall in Texas output of more than 10 billion cubic feet a day between February 8 and 17. The same note observes that residential and commercial prices stayed fairly flat in most states, because regulation sets their price parameters in advance. EIA's later explanation of retail price lags names Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 and notes that distribution utilities asked regulators to spread the recovery of their gas costs over several years. The 2021 annual average was $3.89, and the residential price rose that year from $10.78 to $12.18 per Mcf.

January 2024. The day of January 12, 2024 at $13.20 stands alone: $3.15 the previous trading day, $3.25 on the next, $2.55 ten trading days earlier. EIA attributes the January high of 2024 to a cold snap that increased heating demand. For the rest of the year the price stayed low, which is why 2024 is the lowest real year. Replacing that one day with the next day's price would lower the annual average by about 4 cents, a small change to the $2.19 average.

January 2026. The price rose from $2.92 on January 8, 2026 to $8.42 on January 22 and $30.72 on January 23, 2026, then $25.01, $17.19 and $9.34 over the next three trading days, and $4.37 on February 6, 2026. EIA's note on the week ending January 30, 2026 reports a Lower 48 storage withdrawal of 360 billion cubic feet during Winter Storm Fern, the largest weekly net withdrawal in the history of the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report, and attributes it to heating demand and production curtailments in severe weather. The day-by-day path and the effect on bills are in the Henry Hub guide. The January 2026 monthly average was $7.72; every monthly average from February through September 2026 is between $2.77 and $3.62.

Episodes where the data show the timing and not the cause

The autumn of 2005 produced a plateau, not a spike. The price was $14.84 on September 22, 2005 and $15.39 on December 13, 2005, and the year has 66 trading days at or above $10.00. That is the Katrina and Rita season, and the Gulf Coast hurricanes guide has the storm dates and the offshore shut-ins; the EIA price series alone does not assign a cause. 2008 is a different pattern: the highest price of the year, $13.31 on July 2, 2008, was only $0.03 above the prior day, and the year has 72 trading days at or above $10.00. The August 2022 peak of $9.85 on August 22, 2022 is the highest price of 2022, and the December 2022 peak, $7.15 on December 23, 2022, is $2.70 lower; the price was $3.32 ten trading days after the December peak. The January 17, 2025 price of $9.86 was 2.9 times the price ten trading days before, and the price ten sessions later was $3.30. The EIA series gives a price and not a reason, so these episodes carry no cause here.

Table 5 is selective. It lists the highest day of each cluster, chosen so that every episode in which the series passed $10.00 appears, and it adds the 2014, 2018, 2022 and 2025 events that stayed below $10.00 but were large relative to their year. The count of trading days at or above $10.00 given earlier is complete for the series.

The best and worst day of every year

Table 6 gives each year's highest and lowest daily price, with the date, and counts the trading days at or above $10.00 and at or below $2.00. The spread between a year's extremes is wide even in quiet years: even the year with the smallest gap between its extremes, 2017, has a high $1.27 above its low.

Highs in the first quarter dominate: 16 of the 29 annual highs fall in January, February or March, and 6 more in November or December. The years whose highest day falls from April to October are 1998, 1999, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2020, 2022.

Restating a price: three worked conversions

From a past quote to today's dollars. A hedge or contract struck at $5.00 per MMBtu in 2010 was worth $5.00 then. The 2010 index averaged 218.056, so in 2025 dollars it is $5.00 x 321.943 / 218.056 = $7.38, and in September 2026 dollars $7.73. Compare it with 2025's $3.52 and the old price is $3.86 higher.

From a benchmark price to a bill. In 2025 the EIA residential average was $15.34 per Mcf, which is $1.534 per Ccf and $1.48 per therm at 1,036 Btu per cubic foot (a therm is 100,000 Btu). The benchmark at $3.52 per MMBtu is $3.65 per Mcf, which is 23.8 percent of the household price. A 2025 household whose bill rose with the benchmark would see only a fraction of any move: the 2023 data in Table 4 show a year in which the benchmark fell 61 percent and the residential price rose. The units are explained in the therms, Ccf, Mcf and MMBtu guide.

From a power price to a gas price. A gas-fired plant turns each MMBtu into electricity at its heat rate, so a move in the benchmark of $1 per MMBtu changes fuel cost by the heat rate in MMBtu per MWh. The gas per MWh and heat rate guide gives the EIA heat rates and works through fuel cost from $2 to $8 gas, which covers every annual average in Table 1 except 2005 and 2008.

Spot versus futures, one hub, revisions and calendar years

Spot, not futures. Every price here is the daily spot price at Henry Hub. The front-month futures price follows it closely but is not identical; the annual spot and futures averages are compared in the Henry Hub guide, whose Table 2 uses the same EIA annual values as Table 1 here for 2000 to 2025.

One hub, not the nation. Henry Hub is the benchmark, but regional prices diverge from it. West Texas prices have gone negative on some days, as the Waha hub guide explains, and a household's gas cost depends on its utility's supply mix. The comparison with the residential average is a national one, and state averages differ widely.

The series is revised. The figures are those in the EIA table released October 28, 2026. EIA's own articles written at the time of an event sometimes quote the same day or year a few cents to about 30 cents differently, because the daily data are revised after publication and some articles use a different data provider. A comparison with an older article, or with a download taken at another date, can differ for that reason.

Calendar years, and 2026 not yet a year. The annual figures are calendar-year averages; a heating season runs from autumn into spring and straddles two of them. 2026 is unranked because it is incomplete: the average of the 205 trading days through October 27, 2026 is $3.45, and excluding January it is $3.01 over 186 trading days.

Not a forecast. A history of annual averages says what gas cost, not what it will cost. Spot prices at any moment are an input to storage decisions, to export contracts and to power dispatch that these tables do not model. The weekly storage report, discussed in the EIA storage report guide, is the most direct short-run input, and the guide to why natural gas prices move measures how far storage explains the price.

Data and sources, all checked November 3, 2026: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Henry Hub Natural Gas Spot Price, daily, annual and monthly (release of October 28, 2026; the daily series starts January 7, 1997; Refinitiv is the price source credited in EIA's note of January 8, 2025); U.S. Price of Natural Gas Delivered to Residential Consumers, annual (release of October 30, 2026) with its definitions, sources and notes; Heat Content of Natural Gas Deliveries to Consumers (2025: 1,036 Btu per cubic foot). EIA Today in Energy, February 2021 weather triggers largest monthly decline in U.S. natural gas production, Changes in U.S. residential natural gas prices lag spot prices, Spot Henry Hub natural gas prices hit a historic low in 2024 (January 8, 2025) and Record natural gas stock withdrawals during week ending January 30, 2026 (February 5, 2026). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, U.S. city average, all items, not seasonally adjusted (series CUUR0000SA0), via the BLS Public Data API: monthly values January 1997 to September 2026; no value is published for October 2025. Annual averages, real prices, ranks, multiples, spreads, era means, day counts and percentage changes are this page's arithmetic.