New Zealand petrol margins: where your money goes
Every litre of 91 is made of five parts: what the fuel cost to bring into New Zealand, excise duty and levies, the carbon cost of the Emissions Trading Scheme, GST, and a margin for the companies that store, truck and sell it. The margin is the part that comes down to how the fuel companies price. Here's how it has moved, week by week, since 2004. For pump prices and crude oil, see the fuel prices page.
- Cost of importing the fuel183.2c (55%)
- Excise duty and levies77.3c (23%)
- Emissions Trading Scheme12.4c (4%)
- GST43.6c (13%)
- Margin (fuel companies)18.1c (5%)
a litre, week of 25 Sep 2026
Five-year average: 35.0c. Only 7 of the last 261 weeks were lower.
Import costs vs the margin: why the margin swings
Cents a litre, weekly: what it cost to bring a litre of 91 into New Zealand, and the margin left over.
*Click on the indicator key to hide or show indicators
Source: MBIE Energy StatisticsThe Real Economy (opens the full chart page)
What this means
- The margin is what's left of the pump price after taking out the cost of importing the fuel, excise duty and other levies, the Emissions Trading Scheme's carbon cost and GST.
- It pays for everything after the fuel lands in New Zealand: storage, trucking, running service stations (staff, rent, card fees) and profit, for importers and retailers together. MBIE can't split it between them.
- It isn't profit. Costs come out of it, and it can briefly go negative when import costs spike faster than pump prices.
- In September 2026 MBIE added a 'fuel market adjustment' from 27 February 2026 for extra costs importers faced during the Middle East conflict, identified by the Commerce Commission. It raised the import-cost figures from that date, which lowered the margin.
All fuel figures are MBIE's weekly fuel price monitoring for regular 91 petrol (CC BY 4.0), using the average price actually paid after discounts. The most recent weeks are provisional and can be revised. "Today's money" uses Stats NZ's CPI, latest quarter Q2 2026; weeks after that quarter aren't adjusted.