UK motorway fuel premium holds at 18.2p a litre
By Anthony Sharkey, Chief Operating Officer, New Reg Limited
Official price data puts unleaded at motorway services 18.2p a litre above the branded forecourt average, with a 30.1p spread between individual sites.
The captive-audience premium at UK motorway services currently stands at 82.7p a gallon (18.2p a litre) for unleaded: £8.77/gal (193.0p) across 141 reporting motorway sites against £7.95/gal (174.8p) at ordinary branded forecourts.
Dispersion within the motorway estate is wide. The cheapest reporting site is Applegreen, Templepatrick at £7.72/gal (169.8p) and the dearest Esso, Tamworth at £9.09/gal (199.9p), a £1.37 a gallon (30.1p a litre) spread that exceeds the supermarket-to-branded gap seen across the wider market.
For a driver the premium is worth £10.01 on a 55-litre fill. It remains one of the most persistent structural features of UK forecourt pricing, and Promo tracks it continuously as part of its fuel market record.
Figures taken on 19 October 2026. Every figure here is computed from official UK government fuel price data (Open Government Licence v3.0) as published by fuel.co.uk. This page is refreshed with the latest prices, so the figures above are those of the date shown, not of the date it first appeared. Pump prices change through the day and may differ by the time you read this. Averages describe groups of forecourts, not every site within a group. This is general information, not financial advice.