In May 2026, the price of fuels and lubricants for personal transport in the EU increased by 20.7% compared with May 2025, following a 12.9% rise in March 2026 and 20.8% in April, compared with the same months in 2025. Up to February 2026, these prices were generally decreasing for both the EU average and most EU countries.

Compared with May 2025, fuels and lubricants prices rose in all EU countries in May 2026, and 4 of them saw increases above 30%: Bulgaria (+33.9%), Luxembourg (+32.2%), Lithuania (+30.8%) and Romania (+30.4%). The lowest increase was recorded in Hungary (+3.5%), and the rises in the remaining countries ranged from +12.7% in Poland to +29.2% in France.

Source dataset: prc_hicp_minr

Diesel prices down, while petrol's rose slightly compared with April

Looking at diesel and petrol prices in the EU, in May 2026 they increased by 29.0% for diesel and 16.2% for petrol compared with May 2025. In April 2026, diesel prices rose by 33.7% and petrol by 13.6%.

However, on a monthly basis, EU consumers saw diesel prices decrease by 5.8%, while petrol prices increased again, even if by only 0.8% compared with April 2026. In April 2026, diesel rose by 7.9% and petrol by 2.4% relative to March 2026.

Between April and May 2026, diesel prices increased only in Romania (+1.6%) and decreased in the remaining EU countries. The highest decreases were in Germany (-11.9%), Greece (-8.5%), Estonia (-8.4%) and Ireland (-8.1%), while the lowest were in Bulgaria (-0.7%), Hungary (-0.9%) and Cyprus (-1.5%).

When it comes to petrol prices, 23 EU countries registered increases between April and May 2026, ranging from +6.9% in Italy to +0.1% in Croatia and Hungary. On the other hand, Germany (-5.6%), Ireland (-2.0%) and Sweden (-0.7%) recorded decreases in May compared with the previous month.

Source dataset: prc_hicp_minr