Gas Prices in Ohio Today

In the EIA’s July 2026 (revised August 2026) table of motor fuel taxes, Ohio’s state taxes and fees on gasoline total 38.5¢ a gallon, the 15th-highest of the 50 states and D.C. The 51-jurisdiction average is 33.8¢, and the federal tax adds 18.4¢ everywhere. All of it is excise tax, which rose from 28¢ to 38.5¢ on July 1, 2019. The rate is not indexed to inflation. Ohio also levies a petroleum activity tax on wholesale gross receipts, which the EIA lists separately.

Ohio has four refineries: two in Toledo (one owned by Cenovus, formerly BP-Husky, and one by PBF Energy), one in Lima (Cenovus), and one in Canton (Marathon). It is in the EIA’s Midwest region (PADD 2) and also receives gasoline by pipeline from the Gulf Coast. Ohio uses conventional gasoline statewide; the EIA reports no reformulated series for the state.

Ohio prices move in larger weekly steps than the national average. Economists have documented “price cycles” in Midwest gasoline markets, in which stations raise prices sharply on the same day and then lower them gradually over the following days or weeks. Because the EIA records prices once a week, on Monday morning, a weekly number can land at the top or bottom of such a cycle. Ohio has the largest single-week increase of any of the nine weekly states: 90.5¢, in the week of May 4, 2026, when the U.S. average rose 32.9¢. In November 2025 it fell from $3.17 to $2.59 over two weeks while the U.S. average moved from $3.06 to $2.99.

The seasonal peak is sharper than in most states. Averaged over 2004–2025, Ohio prices are 9.0% below the annual average in January and 7.9% above in June, then fall back to 5.4% above in July. Over the full series Ohio has been below the national average in about 83 percent of weeks, by 9.7¢ on average.