Wisconsin Gas Prices This Week

In the EIA’s July 2026 (revised August 2026) table of motor fuel taxes, Wisconsin’s state taxes and fees on gasoline total 32.9¢ a gallon, the 21st-highest of the 50 states and D.C. The 51-jurisdiction average is 33.8¢, and the federal tax adds 18.4¢ everywhere. The Wisconsin excise tax has been 30.9¢ a gallon since April 1, 2006. That was the last automatic inflation adjustment: lawmakers repealed annual indexing in 2005, effective in 2006. A 2¢ petroleum inspection fee makes up the rest of the state figure.

Wisconsin has one refinery, at Superior in the far northwest of the state, with a capacity of about 49,500 barrels a day, according to the EIA; an explosion and fire shut it in April 2018. Six southeastern counties (Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Washington, and Waukesha) require federal reformulated gasoline; the rest of the state uses conventional gasoline.

Wisconsin has no weekly EIA series. For the Midwest region, weekly prices over 2004–2025 averaged 9.8% below their annual mean in January and 7.5% above in June.

Wisconsin’s position has reversed twice. In the EIA’s annual state series it ranked 2nd-cheapest of the 51 in 1970 and was among the five cheapest in 1970–1972 and 1978–1981. From 2000 through 2014 its annual average ranged from 6.6¢ to 12.7¢ above the U.S. average, and its highest-priced ranking in those years was 47th-cheapest, in 2002 and 2007. Since 2015 it has been close to the national average, from 5.5¢ below to 2.7¢ above, ranking between 25th and 30th. The highest annual average is $3.92, in 2022. Adjusted for inflation, the highest was 2011 (2012 was within a cent), at $5.12 in 2025 dollars, and the lowest 1998, at $1.10 ($2.18 in 2025 dollars).

In the EIA’s annual figures, Wisconsin’s average in 2024 was $3.28, just 0.7¢ below the national average and close to level with it. Every one of its neighbors was cheaper: Michigan at $3.10, Iowa at $3.12, Minnesota at $3.15 and Illinois at $3.18.

On the statewide annual average, Illinois has been the cheaper of the two every year since 1982. Before that it was Wisconsin that had the lower figure, in every year from 1970 through 1981. That holds even though Illinois’s state tax in the EIA table, 71.7¢, is more than twice Wisconsin’s 32.9¢.

Wisconsin’s place in the ranking has swung widely over the series. It was 2nd of 51, counting from the cheapest, in 1970, and 47th in 2002 and 2007, its highest-priced placing. It ranked 32nd in 2014 and 30th in 2024, as its price went from $3.40 to $3.28. In between came a long stretch above the U.S. figure, every year from 1994 through 2015, with the widest premium, 12.7¢, in 2011.