West Virginia Gas Prices This Week

In the EIA’s July 2026 (revised August 2026) table of motor fuel taxes, West Virginia’s state taxes and fees on gasoline total 35.7¢ a gallon, tied for the 16th-highest of the 50 states and D.C. The 51-jurisdiction average is 33.8¢, and the federal tax adds 18.4¢ everywhere. The tax has two parts: a flat excise of 20.5¢ and a variable rate set once a year at 5 percent of the average wholesale price of gasoline, which by law cannot fall below 15.2¢. Because the variable part follows wholesale prices, the total can change from one year to the next without a vote of the legislature.

West Virginia has one small refinery, Ergon’s plant at Newell on the Ohio River, with crude capacity of 22,300 barrels a day in the EIA’s January 2026 survey, so most of the state’s gasoline is refined elsewhere. The EPA lists no federal reformulated-gasoline areas in West Virginia; the state uses conventional gasoline.

In the EIA’s annual state series, West Virginia’s position has shifted from decade to decade. Its average gap to the U.S. figure was 0.3¢ below in the 1970s, 7.7¢ above in the 1990s, 6.6¢ above in the 2000s, 10.9¢ above in the 2010s, and 0.4¢ below in 2020–2024. It ranked 45th-cheapest of 51 in 2010, 29th in 2020, and 37th in 2024. In 2008 it averaged $3.33, 16.1¢ above the U.S. figure, and in 2022, its highest year at $3.85, it was 4.7¢ below. Adjusted for inflation the peak was 2012, at $5.22 in 2025 dollars. The largest one-year increases were 1980 (40.7%) and 2021 (39.3%).

West Virginia has no weekly EIA series. The EIA places it in the Lower Atlantic region (PADD 1C), whose weekly prices, averaged over 2004–2025, run from 7.7% below the year’s average in January to 5.1% above in June, with the rise beginning by April.

West Virginia averaged 6.5¢ below Pennsylvania ($3.40), the highest of the bordering states in 2024. It averaged 24.7¢ above Virginia ($3.09), the lowest of them, and 15.9¢ above Kentucky ($3.17). It also averaged 8.5¢ above Ohio ($3.25) and 0.8¢ above Maryland ($3.32) that year. Against the country, its $3.33 in 2024 was 4.7¢ above the U.S. figure of $3.29, and the rank was 15th-most-expensive.

West Virginia's cheapest ranking in 1970–2024 was 10th-cheapest in 1974, inside the run of years 1974–1979 when it averaged below the U.S. average. The other years below were 2000, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023, which makes 11 of 55 years below and 44 of 55 above. Its least favourable ranking was 47th-cheapest (5th-most-expensive) in 1983, 1991, 2008. In 2011 it averaged 18.6¢ above the U.S. average, its largest margin above in any year.

Adjusted for inflation, the 1998 average of $2.16 was the lowest of 1970–2024, and the 2024 figure was $3.42 in 2025 dollars. The constant-dollar average fell 28.0% between 2014 and 2024, while the average at the pump fell 4.6%. The 28.9% fall in 2015, its largest one-year fall, is a regional move as well, because the EIA builds each West Virginia year after 2010 from the change in the state's region rather than from a state survey.