The FuelWide Fair Price Score
A price on its own does not tell you anything. €1.84 a litre is a bargain in one country and daylight robbery in the next, and the same figure means two different things in January and in June. The Fair Price Score is one number, 0 to 100, for the question underneath: is this a good price or not?
The Fair Price Score rates a fuel price from 0 to 100 by where it sits against its own comparison set — the market’s own price history where we hold one, its regional peers where we do not. Higher is cheaper. Every score is published with the reasons that produced it.
What the bands mean
| Score | Reads as | |
|---|---|---|
| 75–100 | Great price | Near the cheapest end of its comparison set. |
| 50–74 | Fair price | Around the middle of its comparison set. |
| 30–49 | Above average | Dearer than most of its comparison set. |
| 0–29 | Expensive today | At or near the dear end of its comparison set. |
Great price: Near the cheapest end of its comparison set. Fair price: Around the middle of its comparison set. Above average: Dearer than most of its comparison set. Expensive today: At or near the dear end of its comparison set.
How it is calculated
There are two methods, and which one a page uses depends entirely on what data exists for that market. We would rather run two honest methods than one that pretends every market has the same evidence behind it.
Used where a long weekly series exists — US national, states and metros
The strongest form of the score, because it compares a market only with itself. We take the position of today’s price inside that area’s own 52-week range: at the year’s low the score starts at 85, at the year’s high at 25. Then we adjust by up to 8 points for whether the current price sits above or below its own 4-week average, which is what separates “expensive and easing” from “expensive and climbing”. At least 8 weeks of data are required; below that no score is shown at all.
- Current price $4.09/gal is 0.7% above the 4-week average
- Sits at 76% of the 52-week range ($2.78–$4.50/gal)
Regular gasoline at $4.09/gal · US gas prices →
Used where no usable per-market history exists — European and regional country pages
The EU Weekly Oil Bulletin publishes history for the EU aggregate only, not per country, so most markets have no long series of their own to be measured against. Instead we rank the market against its peers this week — the 41 European markets we track, or the markets of its own region — and map that position straight onto the scale: cheapest in the set scores 90, dearest scores 20, evenly spaced in between. Nothing else moves it.
This is a weaker claim and we say so where it appears: it tells you where a market sits among its neighbours today, not whether today is dear for that market. As our own weekly archive lengthens, markets move from this method to the first.
- Cheaper than 14 of the other 29 Asia markets we track this week
- 2.0% above the Asia median of €0.98/L
Regional average €1.01/L · China →
What the score does not know
It does not price crude oil
Oil moves reach the score only through pump prices, at whatever speed each market passes them on. We do not model the link — a modelled number sitting beside measured ones is the one figure a reader cannot verify.
It does not judge tax policy
Every price scored is the pump price including duties and VAT, so tax is most of what separates European markets here. The score reports the consequence; it takes no view on whether the tax is right. The split is on each country page.
A cross-sectional score is relative, not absolute
Method 2 says where a market sits among its neighbours, not whether the whole neighbourhood is dear. If every market in a region doubled overnight, the scores would barely move — the ranking would not have changed.
It scores the market, not the forecourt
A country score is about the national average. Individual stations vary widely around it — where we hold forecourt prices, the city and station pages are the place to look, not this number.
The scale, on this week’s data
The cheapest, the middle and the dearest of the 41 European markets we track for petrol 95, week of 2026-08-17. Not chosen — read off the live ranking, so this section changes when the ranking does.
- The cheapest of the 41 European markets we track this week
- 22.4% below the European median of €1.73/L
- For context, European prices as a whole are broadly stable over the last 4 weeks
30.4% below the EU average of €1.92/L · see the full page →
- Cheaper than 20 of the other 40 European markets we track this week
- Within half a percent of the European median of €1.73/L
- For context, European prices as a whole are broadly stable over the last 4 weeks
10.2% below the EU average of €1.92/L · see the full page →
- The most expensive of the 41 European markets we track this week
- 41.6% above the European median of €1.73/L
- For context, European prices as a whole are broadly stable over the last 4 weeks
27.1% above the EU average of €1.92/L · see the full page →
Frequently asked questions
What is the FuelWide Fair Price Score?
A 0–100 rating of how a fuel price compares with the set of prices it belongs to. 100 means near the cheapest end of that set, 0 near the dearest. It is published on every country, state and metro page where we hold enough data to compute it, alongside the reasons that produced it. This week's European range runs from 90 in Malta to 20 in Denmark.
How is the score calculated?
Two ways, depending on what data exists for the market. Where we hold a long weekly history — US states and metros — the score is longitudinal: where today's price sits inside that area's own 52-week range, adjusted for how it compares with its own 4-week average. Where we hold no usable per-market history, the score is cross-sectional: purely where the price ranks among that market's peers this week, with the cheapest scoring 90 and the dearest 20. Nothing else adjusts a cross-sectional score.
Does the score include tax?
Only implicitly. Every price we score is the pump price including all duties and taxes, so a heavily taxed market scores worse — that is most of what the score is picking up in Europe. But tax is not a separate input, and the score does not attempt to say whether a tax level is justified. The tax split itself is shown on each country page.
Does it use the oil price?
No. Crude movements reach the score only through the pump prices themselves, with whatever lag each market passes them on at. We do not model the relationship, because a modelled figure presented next to measured ones would be the one thing on the page nobody could check.
Can I use the score?
Yes — it is our own calculation, and free to quote with a link to the page you took it from. It is also the one field in our API that is ours rather than a pass-through of somebody else's licensed measurement: every market the API serves carries a `fairPriceScore` object with the number, the band, which method produced it and what it was compared against.
Every price behind a score carries its own publisher, licence and reference date.