Fuel prices 2025: cheaper than ever? ADAC warns of surprises!

Fuel prices 2025: cheaper than ever? ADAC warns of surprises!

The fuel prices in Germany show a decline in May 2025, which is positive for many drivers. The liter of Super E10 cost an average of 1.68 euros in the nationwide, while diesel was 1.56 euros. These prices are lower than on average in 2024 and significantly cheaper compared to the years 2023 and 2022, when the costs were temporarily over two euros per liter. Christian Laberer, fuel market expert at ADAC, emphasizes that 2025 could be the fourth annual tank of fuel ever, even if inflation is taken into account. This assessment could influence the feeling of consumers that the current fuel prices appear to be favorable compared to the younger years.

The prospect of price fluctuations in recent years is particularly striking. In 2020, the diesel price fell temporarily even less than one euro, the prices were more than 40 cents lower than in May 2025.

price components and their influence

The current fuel prices are made up of three main components: the oil price, taxes and levies as well as the costs for processing and sales. The oil price fluctuated strongly in the past five years, from over 100 euros to under 40 euros per barrel. It is estimated that about 36 cents of the liter price itself are determined by the oil price itself. However, most of the price is made up of taxes and levies, which are around 105 cents at Super E10 and about 86 cents at Diesel. An essential part of these levies is the unchanged energy tax since 2003, which was somewhat influenced by the temporary fuel price brake 2022.

An additional factor in pricing is the CO2 price, which amounts to about 13 cents at petrol and almost 15 cents at Diesel. While the costs for processing, sales and profits of the mineral oil companies have a smaller share of the total price, these costs have also increased in recent years.

statistical developments and forecasts

The Federal Statistical Office in Germany published a report on May 28, 2025 that summarizes the development of energy prices. This report includes various types of energy, including hard coal, lignite, oil and natural gas, as well as specific products such as gasoline and diesel. The data comes from the statistics of the Group prices and Eurostat, whereby the report appears monthly and contains fundamental explanations on the pricing mechanisms. According to the report, the base year for statistics 2021, and many of the data it contains can be called up in machine-readable formats from the Genesis-Online database.