How US Gas Prices Compare With Rest of World

Drivers around the world are paying an average of $5.89 per gallon for gasoline this week, according to Global Petrol Prices, a jump of roughly a dollar since late February, before war erupted in Iran and sent shock waves through global energy markets.

As of February 23, a few days before the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on the Islamic Republic, the average gas price worldwide was $4.92 per gallon. The global increase is similar to the one seen across the United States since late February, when gas prices averaged about $2.98 per gallon shortly before the conflict began. As of Thursday, the national average had reached $4.28 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association.

That makes for an increase of $1.30 per gallon of gas in the U.S. since February 28. For American drivers hoping for lower gas prices after the massive surges that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and the subsequent disruptions to the global oil supply, it has brought a significant additional financial burden.

Global Petrol Prices, which has released data up to September 7, recorded a national average gas price in the United States of $4.42, slightly higher than AAA's average that day of $4.15 per gallon.

According to Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, American consumers are paying $377 million more per day due to higher gas prices. That adds up to a "$4.63 billion additional surcharge every week," he wrote on X.

De Haan also told Newsweek that even the limited drop in gas prices usually seen in fall "is in question" amid the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Iran.

Despite this clear setback, Americans have been somewhat shielded from the sharpest price increases, which have hit other parts of the world. Based on Thursday's AAA data, gas prices in the United States are roughly $1.61 below the global average.

Fuel prices have climbed worldwide since the start of the war as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and gas supply used to flow, has caused oil prices to skyrocket.

The five cheapest places to buy gas are all major oil producers or heavily subsidized fuel markets. At the bottom of the ranking, drivers in Libya paid just $0.09 per gallon, followed by Iran ($0.11), Venezuela ($0.132), Angola ($1.238) and Kuwait ($1.287), according to data from Global Petrol Prices.

These prices are a fraction of the global average and reflect a combination of government subsidies, domestic oil production and state intervention in fuel markets.

At the other end of the spectrum, the world's highest gas prices on Monday were recorded in Hong Kong, where motorists paid $15.892 per gallon, more than 170 times the price in Libya.

Next came Malawi ($12.245), Norway ($11.765), Denmark ($11.100) and the Netherlands ($10.371).

Unlike many of the cheapest markets, these economies impose substantial fuel taxes and environmental levies, which help drive pump prices well above the global average.

The most expensive markets, however, are not necessarily the ones that suffered the worst impact from the disruptions in the oil market caused by the ongoing war in Iran.

During the first month of the conflict, Australia recorded the sharpest gas-price increase in the world, with prices rising 42 percent between February 23 and March 23, according to Global Petrol Prices. It was followed by Sri Lanka, where prices climbed 33.8 percent; the United States, up 30.2 percent; Canada, up 25.2 percent; and Pakistan, up 24.4 percent.

In these markets, retail fuel prices tend to track fluctuations in global crude prices more closely, meaning geopolitical shocks can show up at the pump within weeks.

On the other hand, prices remained unchanged in several regulated or subsidized markets, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, India and Bangladesh. Big oil producers and countries with regulated fuel markets—like many of the ones listed here—are able to insulate drivers from short-term swings in international oil prices, delaying or entirely preventing the kind of sharp increases seen elsewhere.

Whether gas prices continue climbing in the coming months will largely depend on developments in the Middle East and whether the Strait of Hormuz reopens. As the U.S. and Iran continue to exchange strikes, an end to the conflict is nowhere in sight.

But even if the war ended today and traffic through the waterway immediately restarted, gas prices would not come down significantly as quickly as they went up.

"Normal flows of oil through the Strait of Hormuz would likely be step one. But even if the strait reopens, it will take some time to normalize," Denton Cinquegrana, the chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, a Dow Jones company, previously told Newsweek.

Newsweek contacted Cinquegrana for further comment by email on Thursday.

Commenting on President Donald Trump's recent statement that "right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward," De Haan wrote on X, "Even then I don't see any guarantees at all of that happening."

He told Newsweek: "We usually see some limited seasonal drops as U.S. gasoline demand fades into the autumn and we change next week to winter gasoline, but that relief is in question and can be offset by new or continued escalations in each of the two major tensions: new escalations between the U.S. and Iran prolonging the Strait shutdown and continued Ukraine attacks on Russia's oil refineries, limiting Russia's ability to export fuels."

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Shakeema Edwards.