Know what’s behind the price.

Current station prices

Tank Prices imports retailer-reported prices from the UK Fuel Finder data feed. A station’s “price checked” time shows when Tank Prices last imported that reported price. “Last changed” shows when the retailer last changed it. Prices can change before our next import, so check the pump before paying.

If a price hasn’t changed for 30 days, we label it “Price unchanged since …”. Most prices move every week or two, so a long-unchanged price may not have been updated. It isn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s worth checking.

How comparisons work

Town pages compare stations assigned to that town by the feed. Full-postcode and “Use my location” searches use a straight-line radius, which is not driving distance. The lowest and average figures use stations reporting the selected fuel; they are not weighted by litres sold. Temporary and permanent closures are left out of comparisons.

Each station page ranks its prices against open stations nearby. We start with a 3-mile radius and widen it to 5 or 10 miles until there are at least five stations to compare. The radius used is shown with each ranking.

Brand pages group supermarket forecourts (Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Costco) by retailer, because supermarkets set their own prices whatever fuel brand is on the canopy, and other forecourts by the fuel brand they report. Because a brand’s national average mostly reflects where its forecourts are, brands are ranked by comparing each forecourt with other brands’ forecourts within 3 miles.

Motorway figures use the motorway-services flag that retailers report to Fuel Finder. A few sites on major A-roads carry the flag too, so a small number of non-motorway sites are included.

Opening hours and facilities

These come from station details in the feed. “Usually open now” follows the stated weekly schedule, including overnight hours and 24-hour fuel availability. Bank holidays and unexpected closures may differ. Missing hours are shown as unavailable rather than guessed.

History and official averages

Station price history starts when Tank Prices first records a station’s price. We record a new entry each time a price changes, which lets us show week-on-week movement for a town once we have a week of history for most of its stations, and check fleet fill-ups against what nearby stations charged that day. We never estimate prices from before our records begin. The UK historical chart uses the government’s weekly road fuel price series, which uses a different method from Tank Prices’ current station averages. We label the two separately so they are not mistaken for one continuous dataset.

Public sector information is used under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Tank Prices is independent of the UK government.