Kentucky gas tax
State fuel excise · tax year 2026 · federal tax excluded
On a 20-gallon fill
$5
Over 500 gallons
$125
Per gallon
25.0¢
state only
Rate rank
26
1 is the highest
What Kentucky charges at the pump
- Think of it as a charge per tank rather than a rate. In Kentucky that charge is $5 every twenty gallons, and $125 across a year of five hundred. The state ranks 26 in the country. Nobody ever quotes it this way, which is why almost nobody knows what they pay.
- Diesel gets no penalty in Kentucky. Twenty gallons of it carries $4.40 of state tax, against $5 on gasoline, and over a year the diesel total is $110. Most states charge diesel more. This one does not.
- Kentucky adds a little more beyond the main fuel tax. Inspection and environmental charges come to $0.28 on a twenty-gallon fill. It is not large, and it is not optional either.
- Expressed per transaction rather than per gallon, Kentucky's fuel excise is $5 on a twenty-gallon fill and $125 annually at five hundred gallons, ranking 26 nationally. ⚠️ Federal excise is excluded. Per-gallon quotation is conventional but obscures incidence: the same rate costs an efficient vehicle materially less per mile, so the tax is regressive with respect to vehicle age in a way the headline figure never shows.
- No diesel premium applies in Kentucky: $4.40 per twenty gallons against gasoline's $5, or $110 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.
- Beyond the principal excise, Kentucky levies separately-reported charges on motor fuel worth $0.28 per twenty gallons. ⚠️ Because states differ in whether such charges are consolidated into the headline rate or reported apart, cross-state rate tables — including the rank on this page — are not strictly comparable at the margin.
Your year of fuel tax
A $75,000 salary
| State fuel taxper gallon | 25¢ |
|---|---|
| Fuel tax, year | $156 |
| You must earn | $233 |
| Hours of work | 6.5 hr |
State excise only. Federal fuel tax and any local levy are not included.
Tax in a tank
A $75,000 salary
| State rate | 25¢ a gallon |
|---|---|
| Tank costs | $44.80 |
| Fifty tanks a year | $175.00 |
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 Kentucky 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 | 25.0¢ | $5 | $125 |
| Diesel | 22.0¢ | $4.40 | $110 |
| Other state charges | 1.4¢ | $0.28 | — |
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 Kentucky.
- 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 Kentucky 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 Kentucky 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?
Because it was charged long before you got there. Fuel tax is levied per gallon on the way to the pump, so the price on the sign already contains it — nothing is added at the register, and the amount does not change with what the fuel happens to cost that week.
How does this compare with other states?
In the middle of the pack — 26 of 51. That is a more common position than either extreme, and it means neighbors are likely to be charging something similar rather than very different.
Is diesel taxed the same as gasoline?
No — it carries its own rate, a lower one here. States set the two separately, usually reasoning about road wear from heavy vehicles rather than about the fuel itself, so the gap between them is a policy choice rather than a chemical one.
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 26 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.