Gas Tax by State 2026

Texas has charged 20 cents per gallon since 1991, a 34-year freeze. In 1991, 20¢ was a meaningful fraction of the pump price; in 2026, inflation has eroded that same 20¢ to less than 10¢ in real terms. Texas handles the shortfall through Proposition 1 (2014) and Proposition 7 (2015), constitutional amendments that redirect portions of oil and gas severance tax revenue to the State Highway Fund. When energy prices fall, that backstop shrinks; Texas highway funding tightened during the 2015-2016 oil bust and again in 2020.

Mississippi at 18.79¢ is the lowest rate in the continental United States and has been unchanged since 1987. The rate combines with the state's location near Gulf Coast refineries to produce some of the cheapest pump prices in the country. Massachusetts, despite being a high-cost state by every other measure, has also held its gas tax at 24¢ since 1991; multiple inflation-indexing proposals have stalled in the legislature, leaving the real value of the tax at roughly half its 1991 level.

Missouri raised its rate from 17.4¢ in three annual increments from 2022 to 2025 under Proposition D, which voters passed in 2018, the first Missouri gas tax increase since 1996. The law included an unusual provision allowing individual taxpayers to seek refunds on the increases, creating the only known opt-out mechanism for a state excise tax. That provision was widely criticized as unworkable but remained in the final legislation, and the rate completed its three-year phase-in at 22¢ in 2025.

Illinois's 2019 Rebuild Illinois plan doubled the state excise from 19¢ to 38¢ in a single day (July 1, 2019) as part of a $45 billion infrastructure package. CPI indexing began in 2020, pushing the rate to roughly 47¢ by 2026, a nearly 150 percent increase from 2018. The overnight doubling drew national media attention but passed with bipartisan support because Illinois's infrastructure backlog was well-documented and the state's bonding capacity for roads was exhausted after years of fiscal crisis. Illinois ranks sixth by population, and the scale of its urban highway network made the maintenance case hard to contest.

California's excise of 54.0¢ is the second-highest in the nation by the statutory rate alone, but the full picture is more expensive. The state's Low Carbon Fuel Standard program and cap-and-trade system each impose costs on fuel distributors that pass to consumers at roughly 15-25¢ per gallon combined. A California driver at the pump effectively faces a state burden closer to 70-80¢ per gallon in total state-originated charges, more than Pennsylvania's 57.6¢ excise alone. The excise is set under SB 1 (2017) with annual CPI adjustments; the LCFS and cap-and-trade components are set by the California Air Resources Board independently of the legislature.

Maryland, Utah, North Carolina, and Virginia also index their rates to formulas tied to CPI or wholesale prices. These indexed states avoid holding a legislative vote each time the rate rises, but the override option exists in every one of them. During the 2021-2022 inflation spike, Washington froze its rate mid-cycle and Indiana temporarily capped its adjustment; the legislative override has been used, and every indexed state knows it.

Every state restricts most gas tax revenue to transportation purposes, a user-fee rationale central to the political acceptance of fuel taxes since the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. In practice, 'transportation' varies by state. Texas splits its fuel tax between highways and public education under Article VIII of its constitution, the only state with this arrangement. New Jersey and Maryland dedicate substantial shares to transit agencies (NJ Transit and MTA Maryland respectively), making their high gas taxes a transit subsidy for non-drivers as well. Florida allows a portion of fuel tax revenue to fund port infrastructure.

The federal Highway Trust Fund, fed by the 18.4¢/gal federal excise set in 1993, has been insolvent on a standalone basis since 2008. Congress has transferred more than $275 billion from the general fund into it since then to prevent insolvency. Every state in the top ten for gas tax, Pennsylvania, California, Washington, Illinois, and Maryland, is also a state where federal highway aid covers a smaller share of total road spending than it did two decades ago. The same states cluster near the top of the states by population density map, where high vehicle miles traveled per square mile compounds maintenance costs.

Electric vehicles complicate the picture for every state. A vehicle that pays no gas tax still uses the same roads; the shortfall from EV adoption grows each year as fleet electrification accelerates. Oregon was the first state to pilot a per-mile road user charge (OReGO, launched 2015) as a direct gas tax replacement. Utah, Virginia, and several others have introduced per-mile programs or flat annual EV fees. No state has fully replaced the gas tax with a per-mile charge, but even a 10-15 percent EV share creates a measurable revenue gap in the most populous states like California and Washington.