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The motorway fuel premium: 20.0p a litre, measured

Every motorway service area against the cheapest forecourt nearby, updated daily.

Britain’s 147 motorway service areas charge an average of 187.6p a litre for unleaded. The other 7,192 forecourts charge 167.6p. That is a premium of 20.0p a litre, or £11.01 on a 55-litre tank, every time you fill up without leaving the motorway.

How this is measured

Every fuel retailer in the UK is legally required to submit its prices to the government Fuel Finder scheme and keep them current, under the Motor Fuel (Open Data) Regulations 2025. This compares the 147 forecourts flagged as motorway service areas in that data against the 7,192 that are not, using unleaded E10, the grade most drivers buy.

Only forecourts that have reported recently are included. A price that has not moved in months tells you what somebody charged in the spring, not what you will pay today, and including one would flatter or damage an average without warning. Prices more than 25% from the national median are also left out, because a single mistyped figure can move a small group’s average on its own. Data as at 2026-11-10.

Not every motorway forecourt is expensive

The average hides a real spread. 8 of the 147 motorway forecourts are actually cheaper than the national average for ordinary forecourts, and the gap between the cheapest and dearest motorway site is 56.8p a litre. If you are stopping anyway, which services you stop at matters more than whether you stop.

The cheapest motorway forecourts

The dearest motorway forecourts

Which operator charges what

Motorway services are run by a handful of operators, and they do not price alike. Operators with at least three sites in the data:

Why the premium exists

Motorway service areas pay far more in rent than a roadside forecourt, they are required to stay open 24 hours and to provide free facilities and two hours of free parking, and they have a captive market: once you are on the motorway and low, your alternative is a detour. None of that is hidden, and none of it is illegal. It is simply worth knowing what it costs, which is £11.01 a tank on these figures.

What you can do about it

Very little, in the moment. The useful decision is made before you set off, not at the slip road. If you can fill up within a few miles of the motorway rather than on it, that is where the £11.01 goes back. Our area pages show every forecourt and its current price by town, and the brand league table ranks all fuel brands by average price.

Source: the government Fuel Finder scheme, run by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which retailers are legally required to submit to. Figures on this page are recalculated every time the site is built, so they describe the market as at the date above rather than whenever this was written.