South Carolina Gas Tax

South Carolina calls its gasoline tax a motor fuel user fee, charged at 28.0¢ a gallon, with two small additions: a quarter-cent inspection fee and a half-cent environmental impact fee. Fuel is exempt from the state sales tax. The EIA also flags South Carolina as allowing local option taxes on fuel, which are not included in its figures.

The current rate is the end point of Act 40 of 2017, which raised the fee from 16¢ to 28¢ in six annual 2-cent steps, each on July 1, from 2017 through 2022. The added revenue goes to the state’s Infrastructure Maintenance Trust Fund for road repair. The fee is not indexed, so the July 2022 step was the last change.

In the EIA’s July 2026 (revised August 2026) table, South Carolina’s state taxes and fees total 28.8¢ a gallon, the 21st-lowest of the 50 states and D.C., against a 51-jurisdiction average of 33.8¢. Before 2017 it had one of the lowest rates in the country. The South Carolina gas prices page shows how pump prices there compare with the national average.

South Carolina has only two neighbors, and both charge more. North Carolina’s state tax is 41.3¢ a gallon and Georgia’s is 34.1¢, against South Carolina’s 28.8¢.

The North Carolina gap is the wider one, and it matters most around Charlotte, whose metro area spreads south into York and Lancaster counties. Fort Mill and Rock Hill drivers are minutes from stations charging the higher North Carolina rate. On the Georgia side the difference is smaller, across the Savannah River at Augusta and on Interstate 95 near Savannah. Georgia, like South Carolina, is flagged by the EIA for local option fuel taxes that these figures leave out.

The South Carolina figure is a user fee of 28.0¢ plus 0.8¢ in inspection and environmental fees. Combined with the federal 18.4¢ it comes to 47.2¢, and the state part is just over three-fifths of that. The average state tax across the 50 states and D.C. is 33.8¢. South Carolina is below it, the 21st-lowest, even after the six years of increases that ended in 2022. Georgia and North Carolina both reset their rates by formula, so the gap on each border can change without any action in Columbia.

The EIA's July 2026 table places South Carolina's 28.8¢ between Alaska at 9.0¢, the lowest state total, and California at 73.6¢, the highest. Against the 33.8¢ (EIA table, July 2026) average for the 50 states and D.C., South Carolina's total is 5.0¢ below. In that same July 2026 table, 20 jurisdictions rank beneath South Carolina and 30 rank above it, which gives the position of 21st-lowest.

Within the 28.8¢, excise tax accounts for 28.0¢, a 97% share in the EIA's July 2026 table, and 0.8¢ comes from other state taxes and fees on gasoline. Local option taxes on gasoline apply in parts of South Carolina, and none of them is counted in the 28.8¢ (EIA table, July 2026), since the EIA excludes county and local taxes.

Of the 2 bordering states, North Carolina has the highest state total at 41.3¢ (EIA table, July 2026), and South Carolina's 28.8¢ is 12.5¢ below it. Georgia has the lowest at 34.1¢ (EIA table, July 2026), and South Carolina's total is 5.3¢ below that. Both comparisons come from the EIA's July 2026 table, where 2 of 2 neighbors show a higher state total than South Carolina.