How to pay less for fuel in the UK

Where the numbers come from

Since the government’s Fuel Finder scheme started, every petrol station in the UK has to report its prices, and the data is open to anyone. We pull it in every hour for the fuel prices page, which also means we can see patterns that are hard to spot from a forecourt sign.

The figures below are from 12 October 2026 and cover the 3,500 or so stations that had reported a price in the previous eight days. Prices move every week, but the gaps between types of station have been consistent.

Where you fill up matters most

Supermarket forecourts are reliably the cheapest, and motorway services reliably the dearest, by around 24p a litre for unleaded. On a 35-litre fill in an up!, Mii or Citigo, that’s about £8.40 for the same fuel. Diesel shows the same pattern: when we looked, over a third of all stations were charging £2 a litre or more, but only 3% of supermarkets were.

Prices also vary a lot over short distances. Even within five miles there’s often a 10p spread, so the nearest station is rarely the cheapest one.

On long journeys

The motorway is where most people overpay, because the services are the easiest place to stop. But there’s almost always a cheaper station a mile or two off a junction.

London to Manchester is a good example. There are 140 petrol stations within two miles of the fastest route. 21 of the 23 motorway services on the way were charging 195.9p or more for unleaded. The cheapest was a Morrisons in Stone, 1.5 miles off the M6, at 167.7p. On a 40-litre fill, that’s about £11 saved for a few minutes’ detour.

The journey planner does this for any route: put in where you’re going and it lists the cheapest stations along the way, how far each one is off your route, and what you’d save against the services.

Not every price is current

Stations are supposed to report every price change, but plenty don’t update as often as they should. When we looked, a large share of reported prices hadn’t changed in over a week, and a stale price can be well out of date.

That’s why our fuel page greys out any price that’s eight days old or more and pushes it to the bottom of the list. Check the date before you drive across town for a bargain.

How you drive

Where you buy fuel matters more than anything, but how you use it adds up too:

• Smooth beats slow. Gentle acceleration, reading the road and lifting off early for junctions save more than crawling along.
• Motorway speed. Fuel use climbs quickly above about 60 mph, so a few mph less makes a real difference on a long trip.
• Tyre pressures. Check them monthly. Soft tyres cost fuel and wear out faster.
• Weight and drag. Empty the boot and take roof bars off when you’re not using them.
• Short trips. A cold engine uses far more fuel. Combining errands into one trip helps.

E10 or super unleaded?

Standard unleaded in the UK is E10, with up to 10% ethanol. The up!, Mii and Citigo petrol engines run on it fine, and super unleaded (E5) costs a lot more: when we looked, its median price was 190.9p against 173.9p for E10, about 17p a litre extra. Unless your car is modified or you have a reason to use it, standard unleaded is the sensible choice. The government has an E10 checker if you want to confirm for your car.