While South African petrol prices have calmed down since their peak in 2022, drivers still pay a significant amount in taxes.
Every time South Africans fill up their ride with petrol, almost one third of their bill goes to taxes and levies.
With the current structure, the General Fuel Levy (GFL) is the biggest drain. For every litre of petrol sold, R3.96 goes to the GFL, while R2.18 goes to the Road Accident Fund.
But these are not all the taxes that local motorists must pay when stopping at the pumps.
The full breakdown of taxes and levies is as follows:
- Fuel levy – 396c per litre
- Road Accident Fund levy – 218c per litre
- Customs and excise – 4c per litre
- Petroleum products levy – 33c per litre
This means that South Africans pay R6.18 in taxes for every litre of 95 unleaded petrol.
With January’s rate of R21.59 per litre, taxes and levies made up 29% of the cost of every litre purchased at the pump.
SA vs EU
The proportion of fuel taxes – and the overall cost – differs significantly from country to country due to economic strength, geographic positions, refining capacity, and several other factors.
To see how South Africa stacks up against more developed countries in the European Union, we compared South Africa’s 2024 fuel prices to several of these Northern nations and found a silver lining.
Using GlobalPetrolPrices, our analysis showed that South Africans are taxed noticeably less on every petrol than European countries, and have a lower total fee, too, with countries like the Netherlands spending significantly more than we do.
This is highlighted in the table below:
| Country | Petrol price | Taxes excl. VAT | Tax percentage of petrol price (excl. VAT) | VAT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| South Africa | R21.59 | R6.14 | 28.4% | N/A |
| Poland | R27.78 | R7.90 (0.391 euros) | 28.4% | 23% |
| Sweden | R28.60 | R9.96 (0.493 euros) | 34.8% | 25% |
| UK | R31.99 | R12.65 (0.626 euros) | 39.5% | 20% |
| Italy | R34.69 | R14.71 (0.728 euros) | 42.4% | 22% |
| Netherlands | R37.65 | R15.94 (0.789 euros) | 42.3% | 21% |
European countries include Value-Added Tax (VAT) in their fuel prices – normally added after most taxes, further compounding costs – while South Africa does not impose this additional charge on its fuel prices.
This gives South Africans a huge price break compared to Europeans.
When VAT is included in the costs, this places each European country’s taxes over 50%, a far cry from South Africa’s 30%.
However, even before VAT is added, every European country we assessed had a higher tax rate than South Africa.
South Africa’s total costs per litre of fuel were also lower than every European country in our comparison.
These discrepancies result from various factors, including vastly different economies and transport and distribution costs.
One of the main reasons for this is that the EU imposes a minimum excise duty of 0.359 euros per litre (R7.25), which means that every country in the EU has a minimum fuel tax higher than South Africa’s current R6.18 fuel tax.
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