# What is the DOE diesel price? > The DOE diesel price is the US average retail price of on-highway diesel that the Energy Information Administration surveys every week and posts as the price for Monday. It is the number almost every fuel surcharge in US trucking is written against, which is why the whole trade watches for it. _Updated Aug 13, 2026._ The [DOE diesel price](/number/doe-diesel-price) is the US average retail price of on-highway diesel that the Energy Information Administration surveys each week and reports as the price for Monday. It is the number almost every fuel surcharge in US trucking is written against, so when it moves, surcharge rates across the industry move with it on a fixed formula. The trade calls it the DOE number because EIA sits inside the US Department of Energy. ## Who publishes it, and when EIA collects the cash self-serve pump price of on-highway diesel as of 8 a.m. local time on Monday from a sample of about 590 retail diesel outlets across the Lower 48, truck stops and service stations, on its Form EIA-888 survey. It posts the national average the same week, Tuesday morning Eastern under its current schedule, and a day later in a week that carries a federal holiday. The figure always represents that Monday, which is where the Monday number gets its name. Alaska and Hawaii sit outside the survey. ## What on-highway means On-highway is taxed pump diesel, the fuel a road tractor actually buys. It is not dyed off-road diesel, the untaxed farm and construction fuel that is illegal in a highway truck, and it is not a wholesale or rack price. Federal and state fuel taxes are inside the number. Since 2006 that fuel has been ultra-low sulfur diesel, 15 parts per million of sulfur or less, so on the road diesel and ULSD name the same thing. [Chart: US on-highway diesel price](https://mondaydiesel.com/number/doe-diesel-price) ([data](https://mondaydiesel.com/number/doe-diesel-price.md) — chart image: https://mondaydiesel.com/charts/number/doe-diesel-price/chart.png) The chart above is the live DOE number with its history behind it. Everything else on this site, the regional breakouts, the spreads, the cost per mile, is built off that one series. ## Why one number runs the industry The DOE price matters far beyond the pump because of the fuel surcharge. Most contracts between carriers, brokers and shippers set a base fuel price and then add a surcharge for every increment the DOE number sits above that base, so a single public figure decides what thousands of loads pay in fuel that week. That is a rare thing in freight, one number everyone agrees to read, and it is this one. How the surcharge mechanic works is its own guide. ## Why this number and not another There are private diesel price feeds, and there are prices posted on the door of every truck stop, so it is worth asking why the whole industry settled on this one. Three reasons. It is public, so no party to a contract owns or can move it. It is national and consistent, surveyed the same way every week on a long public record, though one break sits in that record: EIA redesigned the survey sample effective June 13, 2022, expanding it from roughly 400 to nearly 600 outlets, and says estimates before and after that date are not directly comparable, so a five-year comparison that reaches back across 2022 carries that caveat. And it is free, which matters when a surcharge clause has to be enforceable between two companies that agree on nothing else. A shared reference nobody controls is exactly what a fuel-risk clause needs, and the DOE survey has been that reference for a generation. ## The regions are the same survey The US average is the headline, but EIA breaks the same weekly survey into the five PADD regions, three East Coast subregions, California on its own and PADD 5 with California removed. A West Coast fleet and a Gulf Coast fleet read very different numbers off the same release, which is why the region pages exist alongside the national one. ## Worked example: the number, per mile The DOE number is a price per gallon, but an operator plans in cents per mile. For the week of Jul 6, 2026 the US average was $4.578 a gallon (the live figure sits on the chart above). At this site's stated 6.5 mpg reference, a plain mid-fleet figure for a loaded Class 8 truck, that works out to about 70.4 cents of fuel per mile, or roughly $352 of fuel for a 500-mile haul. Your own truck's number moves with its economy, but the reference lets you compare one Monday to the next on even terms. [Table: This week's DOE on-highway diesel price](https://mondaydiesel.com/number/doe-diesel-price) ([data](https://mondaydiesel.com/number/doe-diesel-price.md)) Monday Diesel publishes the DOE number, its move in cents and its translation to the mile, dated to the week EIA surveyed it. It does not forecast where the number goes next and it never tells a reader when or where to buy fuel. Monday Diesel is a free weekly read of the DOE diesel number and what it does per mile. Built entirely from EIA's public data, in your inbox before dispatch, one email a week. ## Related data + guides - [This week's DOE diesel price](https://mondaydiesel.com/number/doe-diesel-price) - [Regional diesel prices](https://mondaydiesel.com/region) - [How fuel surcharges work](https://mondaydiesel.com/guides/how-fuel-surcharges-work) - [Cost per mile: fuel math for an owner-operator](https://mondaydiesel.com/guides/diesel-cost-per-mile) - [Glossary](https://mondaydiesel.com/glossary) ## Common questions ### When exactly does EIA release the diesel number? EIA surveys the price as of Monday morning and posts the US average the same week, Tuesday morning Eastern under its current schedule, and a day later in a week with a federal holiday. Whatever day it posts, the number is the price for that Monday. ### Why is it called the DOE number? The Energy Information Administration is part of the US Department of Energy, so the trade calls its weekly on-highway diesel price the DOE number or the DOE index. It is the same figure EIA publishes. ### Is the DOE price national or regional? Both. The headline is the US average, but the same weekly survey also publishes the five PADD regions, three East Coast subregions, California on its own and PADD 5 without California. A regional fleet reads its own line off the same release. ### Does the DOE diesel price include taxes? Yes. It is a retail pump price, so federal and state fuel taxes are inside it. Wholesale spot and rack prices are quoted without taxes, which is one reason retail sits well above them. --- Canonical URL: https://mondaydiesel.com/guides/what-is-the-doe-diesel-price