Israel's Pump Price Jumps 14.6% Overnight to 8.05 Shekels a Litre

Israel's Fuel and Gas Administration announced that from midnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, 1 April 2026, the prices of supervised fuel products sold to consumers at filling stations would be updated. The maximum price of a litre of unleaded 95-octane petrol at a self-service pump, including value added tax, would not exceed 8.05 shekels (about $2.55, or close to $10 a US gallon), an increase of 1.03 shekels, or 14.6%, on the previous update. The surcharge for full service stayed at 0.25 shekels a litre.

According to the administration, the rise was driven mainly by a 49% increase in the price of petrol in the Mediterranean basin, itself a consequence of the worldwide rise in the price of oil following the war, together with a moderate rise of about 2% in the fuel exchange rate.

Why a government body sets the price of Israeli petrol

Unlike most Western markets, Israel caps what a filling station may charge for 95-octane petrol. The Fuel and Gas Administration, part of the Energy and Infrastructure Ministry, publishes a maximum price at the end of each month for the month that follows, and stations may sell below it but not above. The figure is built from a formula: the average price of fuel in the Mediterranean basin over five trading days before the last two working days of the previous month, plus a marketing-cost basket, excise duty and VAT, converted into shekels at a Bank of Israel exchange rate, as Ynetnews has explained. That is why the administration's announcements read as arithmetic rather than policy: the war moves the Mediterranean quote, and the pump price follows a month later.

The mechanism applies only to supervised products at supervised stations. JNS noted in a later update that separate rates apply for self-service and full service, and that Eilat, a free-trade zone, is quoted without VAT.

The war in the oil market

The 49% jump in Mediterranean petrol prices sat inside a far larger move in crude. Brent crude was heading for a record monthly gain of more than 50% in March 2026 and was trading near $112 a barrel at the end of the month, according to Trading Economics, which attributed the surge to the Middle East conflict, threats to Iranian energy infrastructure and the near-total disruption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Israeli drivers were therefore paying, with a month's lag, for a disruption in the Gulf.

The conflict driving those prices was still expanding as the new pump price took effect. Times of Israel live coverage from 22 March recorded ten Iranian ballistic missile salvos at Israel in a single day, Israeli strikes on Hezbollah command centres in Lebanon and further operating restrictions at Ben Gurion Airport.

How 8.05 shekels compares

The figure was high by Israeli standards but not a record. Ynetnews, reporting a later increase, put the all-time high at 8.25 shekels a litre in September 2012, and noted a 2022 spike to 8.08 shekels that prompted the government to grant temporary tax relief. Petrol was still near those levels months afterwards: the ministry set the August 2026 ceiling at 8.09 shekels a litre, JNS reported at the end of July 2026.

What the announcement did not say

The administration's statement gave no forecast and no indication of how long the increase would last. It did not say whether the government was considering cutting excise duty to soften the rise, as it had done in the past, and it did not break down how much of the 8.05 shekels was tax. Nor did it address diesel or other fuels beyond the supervised products it named.