Hawaii gas tax
State fuel excise · tax year 2026 · federal tax excluded
On a 20-gallon fill
$3.20
Over 500 gallons
$80
Per gallon
16.0¢
state only
Rate rank
47
1 is the highest
What Hawaii charges at the pump
- Hawaii takes $3.20 in fuel tax from a twenty-gallon fill. Keep driving and the year's total reaches $80. On the rate behind those numbers the state comes 47 nationally. It is one of the few taxes you pay weekly and never think about once.
- Diesel gets no penalty in Hawaii. Twenty gallons of it carries $3.20 of state tax, against $3.20 on gasoline, and over a year the diesel total is $80. Most states charge diesel more. This one does not.
- The headline rate is not quite the whole story in Hawaii. There are separate charges on fuel too — inspection fees, environmental levies, that sort of thing — and they add $0.50 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 Hawaii totals $3.20 per twenty-gallon purchase and $80 over five hundred gallons, a rate ranking 47 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 Hawaii: $3.20 per twenty gallons against gasoline's $3.20, or $80 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.
- Hawaii reports additional fuel levies apart from its principal excise — typically inspection, environmental or underground-storage charges — contributing $0.50 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 | 16¢ |
|---|---|
| Fuel tax, year | $100 |
| You must earn | $159 |
| Hours of work | 4.4 hr |
State excise only. Federal fuel tax and any local levy are not included.
Tax in a tank
A $75,000 salary
| State rate | 16¢ a gallon |
|---|---|
| Tank costs | $44.80 |
| Fifty tanks a year | $112.00 |
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 Hawaii 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 | 16.0¢ | $3.20 | $80 |
| Diesel | 16.0¢ | $3.20 | $80 |
| Other state charges | 2.5¢ | $0.50 | — |
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 Hawaii.
- 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 Hawaii 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 Hawaii 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?
It is already in the price on the sign. The levy is charged per gallon further up the chain, so there is nothing to add at the pump and nothing to itemize.
Is this a cheap state for this?
It sits low, at 47 of 51. That is the tax rather than the price — the rest of what you pay is production and margin.
Is diesel taxed the same as gasoline?
Different rate entirely — lower than gasoline here. The split is deliberate and rests on which vehicles do most damage to the road surface.
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 47 of 51, in the lower third. ⚠️ Excise rank is a poor proxy for retail price: production, distribution and retail margin dominate the final figure, and the tax component is the only part under state control.
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.