Petrol price in South Africa next month, worked out from CEF data

How to read the estimate for December

The big figure is the Gauteng price of the fuel you picked, from 2 December 2026. Petrol is the pump price every station in Gauteng must charge. Diesel and paraffin are wholesale prices: the station adds a margin, but it moves by the same amount.

The first line under it is the over-recovery so far. When it is positive, the price at the pump has been higher than the landed cost of fuel, and the price comes down next month by that amount. A negative figure, an under-recovery, means the opposite.

The line about the levy relief matters this month. The Minister of Finance cut the general fuel levy from +429c to +279c a litre on petrol and from +416c to +116c on diesel for four weeks only. If it ends as announced, those cents come back on 2 December 2026. The fuel levy page shows what the levy costs you in a year.

Petrol price in South Africa: how next month's price is set

The price of petrol, diesel and paraffin is regulated. Each month the Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources adjusts it on the first Wednesday, using a formula the Central Energy Fund applies for the Department. The heart of the formula is the Basic Fuel Price (BFP): what a litre would cost delivered to a South African port, at international prices, freight and insurance, converted at the day's exchange rate.

Every business day the CEF compares that day's BFP with the BFP built into the current pump price, +1,844c a litre for 95 this month. The difference is the over- or under-recovery of the day. At the end of the window, about four weeks, the average of those daily figures is rounded to the nearest cent and becomes the change. As the statement of 30 October 2026 puts it, the over- or under-recovery of one month "will be corrected in the following month".

On top of that, the Minister passes on changes decided elsewhere: the fuel levy set by the National Treasury, the slate levy that clears past under-recoveries, and once a year the margins and transport tariffs. The Basic Fuel Price page explains the daily sheet line by line, and the litre breakdown shows where each of the R30.24 goes.

December 2026: what the CEF figures say so far

From 30 October 2026 to 11 November 2026, international product prices sat below the level built into November's prices: of the +312c over-recovery on 95, +311c comes from product prices and +2c from the exchange rate (R16.53 to the dollar on 11 November 2026). Every fuel shows an over-recovery, the largest on petrol. The table carries each one to the close of the window, then adds the levy relief that ends.

Two figures in the press can differ from these for plain reasons. Some articles give the over-recovery before the levy relief, which suggests a cut of -382c on petrol. Others carry the average to date forward instead of the latest days, which gives R28.62 for 95. Here both steps are shown, and the December 2026 page lets you change each assumption.