The most expensive gas in the world: where a litre costs the most

The most expensive gas in the world is in Hong Kong, where petrol costs about $4.41 a litre ($16.70 a US gallon), so filling a 50-litre tank comes to roughly $221. Malawi ($3.23) and Norway ($3.12) follow. Every one of the 20 countries below charges at least $2.26 a litre, compared with a world median of $1.55 across 170 countries in GlobalPetrolPrices data retrieved 2026-10-13.

The 20 most expensive countries for petrol

Prices are for regular unleaded, converted to US dollars. The tank column multiplies the litre price by 50 litres, a typical tank for a family hatchback or small SUV; where we cover the country, we also show that cost in local currency.

Who makes the list, and why

The top 20 is made up of a few kinds of place. The largest group is European: 14 of the 20 are in Europe, where petrol carries a fixed excise duty per litre plus VAT charged on top of that duty. In most of these countries tax makes up well over half of what drivers pay, which is why a modest move in crude oil barely shifts the pump price. For a ranking of the whole continent, see petrol prices in Europe.

The second group is small, dense, wealthy places outside Europe (Hong Kong, Singapore). They have no oil of their own, very little land for filling stations, and deliberately tax cars and fuel to keep traffic manageable. Hong Kong is the clearest case and leads the world by a wide margin, about 37% above second place: a high duty on motor fuel, a handful of fuel companies, and some of the most expensive land on earth under every forecourt.

The rest are outliers that do not fit either pattern: Malawi (#2), Israel (#6), Mayotte (#10), Uruguay (#20). Their reasons vary. Some simply tax fuel as heavily as Europe does; others face an import-dependent supply chain (fuel trucked long distances inland or shipped to remote islands), a weak currency that makes imported fuel dearer, or foreign-exchange shortages that push importers to pay a premium. A high dollar price in a lower-income country is a very different burden from the same price in Norway.

What a tank costs against local income

Dollar prices tell only half the story. The same tank that stings in one country is a minor expense in another because incomes differ so much. Using World Bank GNI per capita and a standard 2,080-hour working year, here is how long the average person in each listed country we cover would work to pay for 50 litres:

• Switzerland: 2.4 hours for a $128 tank
• Singapore: 3.1 hours for a $123 tank
• Norway: 3.3 hours for a $156 tank
• Denmark: 3.9 hours for a $143 tank
• Germany: 4.2 hours for a $120 tank
• United Kingdom: 4.4 hours for a $116 tank
• Israel: 4.9 hours for a $132 tank
• Hong Kong: 7.3 hours for a $221 tank
• Uruguay: 9.8 hours for a $113 tank

Switzerland charges more per litre than Uruguay, yet a tank takes 2.4 hours of work there against 9.8 in Uruguay. High incomes cushion high fuel prices, which is also part of why governments in rich countries can sustain such high fuel taxes. We do not hold income data for every country on the list, so some are missing here.

The gap to the bottom of the table

At the other end of the ranking, a litre in Libya costs $0.023. That means one tank in Hong Kong would buy about 9,591 litres there. The spread is almost entirely policy: the expensive countries tax fuel heavily, the cheap ones subsidise it, and the underlying oil costs roughly the same in both. The United States, at $1.23 a litre, would pay $61 for the same tank, about 72% less than in Hong Kong.

Read the opposite list in the cheapest gas in the world, the full explanation in why gas prices differ between countries, or compare fuel against wages on the affordability index. Every country has its own page on the petrol price tracker.