Excise revenue falls, fuel prices to rise Tuesday

Excise tax (EFK) revenue came to €2.62 billion in the January–August 2026 eight-month period, against €2.82 billion in the same period of 2025, according to data from the Ministry of National Economy and Finance presented by ertnews.gr. That is a decrease of about €200 million, roughly 7%. At the same time, the same report said, new increases in petrol and diesel are expected from Tuesday 29 September 2026, a development that falls within the network’s ongoing Economy coverage.

ertnews.gr explicitly distinguished two different price levels, which partly explain the apparent contradiction between falling consumption and high prices at the pump. The so-called ex-refinery price of unleaded, that is the price before retail sale, stood at €1.63/litre on 26 September 2026, up 37 cents from €1.26/litre on 27 February 2026, when the war in Iran began. The equivalent ex-refinery price of diesel had reached a high of €1.64/litre on 21 September 2026 and was easing slightly, to €1.56/litre, on 26 September. At the pump, where taxes and distribution margins are added, the same report said petrol “at many stations” is running close to €2/litre, with prices in the Cyclades reaching €2.40/litre. In a separate report by ertnews.gr from Thessaloniki, the average retail price of unleaded there was recorded at €2.219/litre and of diesel fuel at €2.259/litre.

The pressure on household budgets is also showing up in consumer behaviour. According to the Thessaloniki report, many drivers are now limiting themselves to fuel worth just €10 or €20 at a time, unable to fill the tank completely, while petrol station owners in the city are also concerned. The report on EFK linked the drop in fuel consumption to the fall in revenue, since revenue is directly tied to sales volume; the decrease, it noted, points to households that have cut back on travel because of high fuel costs.

In the wholesale market, ertnews.gr reported, September 2026 is expected to close at the highest levels since the start of the war in Iran, with market sources pricing in new increases in ex-refinery petrol and diesel prices from Tuesday 29 September 2026. The Thessaloniki report reached the same conclusion, with petrol station owners saying they expect refinery price increases from next Tuesday. If that scenario is confirmed, retail petrol and diesel prices are expected to rise further from the already high levels of September 2026, at a time when excise tax revenue is already recording a decline compared with 2025, a development followed by the Greece news feed.