The August 15 holiday exodus operation begins this weekend with the DGT forecasting 5.6 million trips over three days. And it is precisely the worst moment to refuel. The liter of 95 gasoline is already around €1.71 and diesel A exceeds €1.83, with daily increases of up to 0.7 euro-cents before the bridge.
Filling a 60-litre tank costs 102 euros with gasoline and almost 110 with diesel, reversing the historical trend that placed diesel as cheaper.
War in the Middle East and end of fiscal relief: the perfect storm
The cause is essentially geopolitical. Since the conflict in the Middle East with the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, diesel rose 15.7% year-on-year in July and gasoline 7.3%, according to the INE.
In that sense, the INE activated on Thursday the safeguard clause of Royal Decree-Law 18/2025: diesel rose 15.7% year-on-year in July, surpassing the 15% threshold that triggers fiscal protection.
As a result, the government will quadruple the rebate planned for September, increasing it from five to twenty euro-cents per liter in the Special Tax on Hydrocarbons, but only for diesel. Gasoline, with a year-on-year increase of 7.3%, is left outside the mechanism and keeps the ordinary five-cent-per-liter cut.
Be that as it may, the outcome is that those starting their holidays this Saturday will pay fuel notably more expensive than just two weeks ago. The 20-cent discount will arrive in September, when most will have returned from their holidays.
Additionally, in August 2026, the fiscal discount in the Special Tax on Hydrocarbons was reduced to 10 euro-cents per liter for all fuels, according to the schedule in Royal Decree-Law 18/2026.
This phased cut (15 euro-cents in July, 10 in August and 5 in September) is what effectively makes refueling, in practice, more than six euro-cents per liter more expensive during the exodus operation.
Although prices do not reach the peaks of 2022, the perfect storm of war, inflation, and end of subsidies makes this long weekend the most expensive to refuel since then.
