District of Columbia gas tax
State fuel excise · tax year 2026 · federal tax excluded
On a 20-gallon fill
$4.70
Over 500 gallons
$118
Per gallon
23.5¢
state only
Rate rank
32
1 is the highest
What District of Columbia charges at the pump
- District of Columbia takes $4.70 in fuel tax from a twenty-gallon fill. Keep driving and the year's total reaches $118. On the rate behind those numbers the state comes 32 nationally. It is one of the few taxes you pay weekly and never think about once.
- Diesel gets no penalty in District of Columbia. Twenty gallons of it carries $4.70 of state tax, against $4.70 on gasoline, and over a year the diesel total is $118. Most states charge diesel more. This one does not.
- The headline rate is not quite the whole story in District of Columbia. There are separate charges on fuel too — inspection fees, environmental levies, that sort of thing — and they add $2.44 to a twenty-gallon fill on top of the main tax. Small on its own. Included in the price all the same.
- Fuel excise in District of Columbia totals $4.70 per twenty-gallon purchase and $118 over five hundred gallons, a rate ranking 32 nationally. ⚠️ Excluding federal excise throughout. Because the charge is fixed in nominal cents rather than indexed to price, its real burden has declined steadily wherever a legislature has not revisited it — several states now index explicitly for that reason.
- No diesel premium applies in District of Columbia: $4.70 per twenty gallons against gasoline's $4.70, or $118 annually at five hundred gallons. ⚠️ The majority of states levy diesel above gasoline to recover heavier road wear, so the parity here is a genuine cost advantage for freight operating in-state rather than a data artifact.
- District of Columbia reports additional fuel levies apart from its principal excise — typically inspection, environmental or underground-storage charges — contributing $2.44 per twenty-gallon fill. ⚠️ These are reported separately by the state and are excluded from the headline rate on which the national rank is computed, so a like-for-like comparison against another state requires knowing whether that state folds equivalents into its main rate or reports them apart.
Your year of fuel tax
A $75,000 salary
| State fuel taxper gallon | 23.5¢ |
|---|---|
| Fuel tax, year | $147 |
| You must earn | $230 |
| Hours of work | 6.4 hr |
State excise only. Federal fuel tax and any local levy are not included.
Tax in a tank
A $75,000 salary
| State rate | 23.5¢ a gallon |
|---|---|
| Tank costs | $44.80 |
| Fifty tanks a year | $164.50 |
State excise only. The federal fuel tax and any local levy are on top of this.
Gasoline, diesel, and the charges reported separately
Per-gallon rates are shown as District of Columbia publishes them, to a tenth of a cent. The money columns are what those rates come to on a 20-gallon fill and across 500 gallons. Federal tax is charged on top of all of it and is not included.
| Fuel | Per gallon | On a fill | Over a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gasoline | 23.5¢ | $4.70 | $118 |
| Diesel | 23.5¢ | $4.70 | $118 |
| Other state charges | 12.2¢ | $2.44 | — |
What this page cannot tell you
- ⚠️ Federal fuel tax is charged on top of all this and is not included above. It is the same everywhere in the country.
- The tank and the year here are round reference amounts, not a guess at your driving. Your own total scales directly with the gallons you actually buy in District of Columbia.
- And some places add local fuel taxes of their own on top of the state's. Those are not counted here.
- ⚠️ Federal motor fuel excise applies in addition to every figure on this page and is deliberately excluded, being uniform nationally. Including it would raise each state's figure by the same amount and compress the differences this page exists to show.
- Quantities are reference points rather than estimates of consumption: liability is strictly proportional to gallons purchased, so any household's figure is this one scaled by its own volume. ⚠️ Fuel purchased outside District of Columbia is taxed by the state where it is bought, which is why the figures describe purchases rather than mileage.
- Local option fuel taxes exist in a number of states and are excluded from these figures, which cover the state levy only. Where a county or city in District of Columbia imposes its own charge, the true per-gallon burden at that address exceeds what this page reports.
Questions people ask
Why is there no tax line on my fuel receipt?
The tax is collected upstream and per gallon, not at the register. That is why the sign price is the final price, and why a cheaper week does not mean a smaller tax.
How does this compare with other states?
Around the middle: 32 of 51. Nearby states are unlikely to differ dramatically at this position.
Is diesel taxed the same as gasoline?
It has a separate rate, below the gasoline one in this state. The two are set independently, generally on arguments about road damage from heavy freight.
Why does motor fuel excise not appear as a separate charge?
Motor fuel excise is levied per gallon at the distributor or terminal, not at retail, so it is embedded in the pump price and not separately stated. Because it is volumetric rather than ad valorem, liability per gallon is invariant to the retail price and its real value erodes with inflation absent legislative change.
Where does this state sit in the national distribution?
This state ranks 32 of 51, within the middle third. Cross-border substitution effects are weakest at this position because adjacent-state differentials are typically small relative to travel cost.
How does the diesel rate relate to the gasoline rate here?
Diesel is taxed at a rate set independently of gasoline and is lower in this state. The differential is generally justified by road-wear attribution to heavy vehicles rather than by fuel characteristics, and several states index the two grades differently.