New Jersey Gas Prices This Week

In the EIA’s July 2026 (revised August 2026) table of motor fuel taxes, New Jersey’s state taxes and fees on gasoline total 49.2¢ a gallon, the 7th-highest of the 50 states and D.C. The 51-jurisdiction average is 33.8¢, and the federal tax adds 18.4¢ everywhere. Most of it is not the 10.5¢ excise but the petroleum products gross receipts tax. A 2016 law raised the total by 23¢ on November 1, 2016, the first increase in 28 years, and set the gross receipts tax to raise a fixed amount of revenue each year, so its per-gallon rate is recalculated as fuel sales change.

New Jersey sits at the end of the main Gulf Coast supply line: the Colonial Pipeline terminates at Linden, on New York Harbor. The state also has two operating refineries, Phillips 66’s Bayway refinery in Linden (275,000 barrels a day of crude capacity) and the Paulsboro refinery (160,000 barrels a day), according to the EIA’s January 2026 survey. The EPA places every county in a federal reformulated-gasoline area. New Jersey is also the only state that bans self-service gasoline statewide, so attendants pump all fuel.

In the EIA’s annual state series, New Jersey moved from the expensive end of the ranking to below the national average. It ranked 44th-cheapest of 51 in 1970, 14th in 1990, and 11th in 2010. Its average gap to the U.S. figure was 1.7¢ below in the 1990s, 5.6¢ below in the 2000s, 6.0¢ below in the 2010s, and 6.6¢ below in 2020–2024. It ranked 22nd in 2015, the year before the tax increase, and 25th in 2024. The highest annual average is $3.81, in 2022, 8.5¢ below the U.S. average. The largest one-year increase in the series was 1974 (47.7%), during the Arab oil embargo.

New Jersey has no weekly EIA series. The weekly Central Atlantic region (PADD 1B) shows the seasonal pattern: averaged over 2004–2025, 7.2% below the year’s average in January and 5.3% above in June.

New Jersey’s best year relative to the rest of the country was 2007. Its all-grades average was 12.6¢ below the U.S. figure that year, and it ranked 2nd of 51, counting from the cheapest, its highest placing in the EIA series. Its largest premium came in 1989, at 5.8¢ above.

The decade since 2014 has been less favorable. The state’s price fell from $3.26 to $3.20, but its rank slipped from 19th to 25th, as prices in other states fell further. In 2024 it was 8.2¢ below the national average. Across the whole series New Jersey has been below the U.S. figure in 36 of 55 years, most of them since the mid-1990s.

New York is the neighbor that has overtaken it. New York’s average has been below New Jersey’s every year since 2020, and in 2024 it was $3.17. Pennsylvania, at $3.40, and Delaware, at $3.31, were both higher than New Jersey, so drivers crossing the Delaware River bridges into Pennsylvania still move into a more expensive state. That comparison is of statewide averages; prices in the New York City suburbs on either side of the Hudson can differ from them.

New Jersey's least favourable ranking in the series was 47th-cheapest, which is 4th-most-expensive, in 1974. By 1980 the state stood 30th-cheapest with an average of $1.24, and the 2020 average of $2.17 put it in the same 30th-cheapest place. The 2000 average of $1.46 ranked 18th-cheapest. The 2024 average of $3.20 ranked 25th-cheapest, which is 27th-most-expensive when counted from the top.

In constant 2025 dollars, the lowest annual average was $1.98 in 1998 and the highest was $4.88 in 2012. The 2024 average equals $3.29 in 2025 dollars, the same figure as the U.S. average of $3.29 for 2024. The 2009 annual average fell 28.9% from the year before, which is the largest one-year fall in the series.

Against the U.S. figure, New Jersey averaged above it in 18 of 55 years from 1970 to 2024. In the EIA table of state gasoline taxes and fees dated July 2026, the average across the 50 states and D.C. is 33.8¢ a gallon, and New Jersey's total of 49.2¢ is 15.4¢ above that average. The annual prices cited here are EIA State Energy Data System averages for all grades of motor gasoline, taxes included, for 1970–2024.