Which States Have Gas Tax Holidays in 2026? The Full List

Guides · October 13, 2026

The last time gas tax holidays made national news was 2022, when prices spiked after Russia invaded Ukraine. They are back. With the national average for regular gasoline at $4.41 a gallon on October 1, up from $3.16 a year earlier, governors across the country are suspending, delaying, or trimming fuel taxes to give drivers relief. Here is every state doing it in 2026, what each measure actually does, and the part the press releases leave out.

Which states have gas tax holidays in 2026

Georgia moved first. Governor Kemp signed HB 1199 on March 20, 2026, suspending collection of motor fuel excise taxes immediately, then extended the suspension through June 2. In late September he resumed a second 30-day suspension of the state's roughly 33-cent tax. Indiana's Governor Braun took the emergency-order route: the gasoline use tax was suspended starting April 8, and the order has been extended through November 4, 2026.

Ohio's is the biggest in dollar terms. HB 519, signed by Governor DeWine, suspends the 38.5-cent gas tax and the 47-cent diesel tax for 90 days, October 4, 2026 through January 2, 2027, with an estimated $725 million in total driver savings over the three months. Illinois and Kentucky did smaller, quieter things: Illinois pushed a 1.3-cent scheduled increase from July 1 to January 1, and Kentucky's Beshear cut 10 cents in the spring and froze a 0.6-cent increase that was set for July 1.

The federal question

There is no federal gas tax holiday. President Trump has called suspending the 18.4-cent federal gasoline tax a good idea, and the Gas Prices Relief Act of 2026 would have paused the 18.3-cent federal excise through October 1, but the bill never made it out of committee. For now, every gallon of relief in 2026 comes from state action. Which is worth remembering the next time a headline implies Washington did something. It did not.

The catch

Here is the part that should end every one of these articles but rarely does. A gas tax suspension does not lower your pump price by the amount of the tax. Research from the Penn Wharton Budget Model, which has studied these suspensions directly, finds drivers typically receive 60 to 80 percent of the savings. The rest is captured by gas stations and others in the supply chain, and in a volatile market like this one, analysts expect the driver's share to land at the lower end.

Run it for yourself. Ohio's 38.5-cent holiday on a 15-gallon fill-up is $5.78 on paper. At 70 percent pass-through, you see about $4. The state books $725 million in relief and drivers feel maybe $500 million of it, spread across every fill-up for three months. That is real money in aggregate and pocket change per stop. These holidays keep happening because they are visible and cheap for the politician, and the gap between the announced number and the number you feel is nobody's job to explain. Now you know it anyway.