Michigan gas tax
State fuel excise · tax year 2026 · federal tax excluded
On a 20-gallon fill
$10
Over 500 gallons
$262
Per gallon
52.4¢
state only
Rate rank
4
1 is the highest
What Michigan charges at the pump
- Think of it as a charge per tank rather than a rate. In Michigan that charge is $10 every twenty gallons, and $262 across a year of five hundred. The state ranks 4 in the country. Nobody ever quotes it this way, which is why almost nobody knows what they pay.
- Diesel gets no penalty in Michigan. Twenty gallons of it carries $10 of state tax, against $10 on gasoline, and over a year the diesel total is $262. Most states charge diesel more. This one does not.
- Michigan adds a little more beyond the main fuel tax. Inspection and environmental charges come to $0.20 on a twenty-gallon fill. It is not large, and it is not optional either.
- Expressed per transaction rather than per gallon, Michigan's fuel excise is $10 on a twenty-gallon fill and $262 annually at five hundred gallons, ranking 4 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 Michigan: $10 per twenty gallons against gasoline's $10, or $262 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, Michigan levies separately-reported charges on motor fuel worth $0.20 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 | 52.4¢ |
|---|---|
| Fuel tax, year | $327 |
| You must earn | $495 |
| Hours of work | 14 hr |
State excise only. Federal fuel tax and any local levy are not included.
Tax in a tank
A $75,000 salary
| State rate | 52.4¢ a gallon |
|---|---|
| Tank costs | $44.80 |
| Fifty tanks a year | $367.00 |
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 Michigan 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 | 52.4¢ | $10 | $262 |
| Diesel | 52.4¢ | $10 | $262 |
| Other state charges | 1.0¢ | $0.20 | — |
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 Michigan.
- 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 Michigan 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 Michigan 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.
Is this a high-tax state for this?
Among the higher ones, yes — 4 of 51. The spread between states on this levy is wide enough that crossing a border can change the cost noticeably, which is exactly why cross-border buying is a live problem for revenue departments.
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 4 of 51, placing it in the upper third. Wide interstate dispersion in per-unit excise creates measurable cross-border purchasing effects, which several revenue departments model explicitly when forecasting receipts.
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.