A gas cost calculator by car turns three numbers into dollars: the miles you will drive, the MPG your vehicle gets and the price per gallon. Gallons equal miles divided by fuel economy; multiply by the pump price and you have the trip cost. The calculator below runs that math for a single road trip, a month of commuting or a full year, starts from a typical rating for your type of vehicle, and adjusts it for highway or city driving, a step most tools skip.
Pick A trip or A year of driving, enter the distance, choose the vehicle type or type in your car’s combined MPG, and select your state. The state fills in a default price from our planning table. Pump prices rose more than a dollar in the past year, so use what you paid this week when you know it; keep the last receipt handy. You get the total, each person’s share, cost per mile, gallons burned, and monthly and yearly figures when the drive repeats. It works as a trip calculator, a monthly fuel calculator or a yearly fuel cost calculator from the same inputs.
Car Gas Cost Calculator
Enter the miles for one trip or a year of driving, your type of vehicle or its MPG, and your state. The calculator prices the gas for the trip, the month and the year, the cost per mile, and each person's share when you split it.
Your Estimate
Estimates only, not a quote. Built from 2026 planning figures: state average prices for regular gasoline and typical combined MPG by vehicle type, with highway and city adjustments taken from EPA ratings of 2025 gas models. Your actual mileage depends on speed, weather, load and how you drive. Tolls and parking are not included.
Worked Example: Trip Cost for a 600-Mile Road Trip Split Three Ways
Take a midsize sedan rated 30 miles per gallon combined on a 300-mile drive each way, mostly interstate, with three people chipping in. Regular averaged $4.465 a gallon on September 28, 2026, according to the EIA weekly price survey, up from $3.118 a year earlier. Round it to $4.47.
- Distance: 300 miles x 2 = 600 miles.
- Interstate figure: 30 x 1.18 = 35.4 mpg.
- Gallons: 600 / 35.4 = 16.95 gallons.
- Fuel cost: 600 / 35.4 x $4.47 = $75.76, or 12.6 cents a mile.
- Per person: $75.76 / 3 = $25.25.
Price the same trip at the sticker’s combined rating and the total comes to $89.40, which is $13.64 more. That difference is the road-type adjustment, explained below. Tolls and parking are not in either number.
How to Calculate Fuel Cost for Any Drive
The formula fits on a sticky note: miles / MPG x price per gallon = fuel cost. Cost per mile is the price divided by MPG, so $4.47 at 30 miles per gallon is 14.9 cents. That one figure answers most quick questions:
- 1,000 miles uses 33.3 gallons, about $149; driven mostly on interstates it drops to $126.27.
- $30 buys 6.71 gallons, enough for about 201 miles in that sedan.
- 12,000 miles a year is $1,788, or $149 monthly.
Price a trip based on the route distance from your map app, not the straight line between cities. Add side trips and the hotel run; those miles burn fuel too.
Regular, Premium or Diesel: Which Price to Enter
Enter the price of the grade your owner’s manual calls for, not the grade you happen to buy. We price every example on this page with regular unleaded, because that is what the EIA survey figure above measures and what most gasoline cars are built to run on.
- Premium required: some turbocharged and performance engines list premium as required. Use the premium price, since running regular in those engines can cost power and mileage.
- Premium recommended: the engine will run on regular with a small performance trade-off. Price the trip at regular unless you always fill with premium.
- Regular specified: paying for a higher octane than the manual lists buys nothing, according to the Department of Energy, so leave the regular price in place.
- Diesel: diesel sells at its own price, reported separately in the same EIA weekly survey. Enter that price with the diesel version’s own fuel economy rating, not the gasoline one’s.
The grade matters more than people expect on a long drive. A premium-required car pays the full grade spread on every gallon, so a 1,000-mile trip in the midsize sedan multiplies that spread by 33.3 gallons.
Compare Gas Mileage by Vehicle Type and Model
Leave the MPG box blank and the calculator uses a typical combined rating for gasoline models of that type, the same figures our cost of car ownership calculator uses for its fuel line. Here is each default next to a popular 2025 model’s EPA rating, with the cost of 12,000 miles at $4.47.
| Vehicle type | Default MPG | EPA example, city / hwy / combined | Per mile | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compact car | 33 | Toyota Corolla 31 / 40 / 34 | $0.135 | $1,625 |
| Midsize sedan | 30 | Nissan Altima 27 / 38 / 31 | $0.149 | $1,788 |
| Compact or midsize SUV | 27 | Toyota RAV4 27 / 35 / 30 | $0.166 | $1,987 |
| Luxury or European | 25 | Varies widely by model | $0.179 | $2,146 |
| Minivan | 24 | Honda Odyssey 19 / 28 / 22 | $0.186 | $2,235 |
| Sports car | 23 | Ford Mustang 2.3L 22 / 33 / 26 | $0.194 | $2,332 |
| Pickup truck | 21 | Ford F-150 2.7L 19 / 25 / 21 | $0.213 | $2,554 |
| Large SUV | 20 | Chevrolet Tahoe 5.3L 15 / 20 / 17 | $0.224 | $2,682 |
A compact and a large SUV driven the same 12,000 miles differ by $1,057 a year in fuel alone. The large SUV and minivan defaults run 2 to 3 miles per gallon above the Tahoe and Odyssey ratings, so owners of those two should look up their exact combined figure on fueleconomy.gov and use it.
Highway vs City: Why the Sticker Number Misprices a Road Trip
The combined figure on a window sticker blends 55 percent city and 45 percent highway driving. A road trip is nearly all interstate, so pricing it at the combined figure overstates the fuel by about 15 percent. Across 15 gasoline models in the 2025 EPA ratings, from the Corolla to the Tahoe, the highway rating ran about 1.18 times the combined number and the city rating about 0.88 times. The calculator applies those factors when you select Mostly highway or Mostly city.
Most gas calculator tools apply one fuel economy figure to every trip. The spread between models is real, though: the Chevrolet Equinox’s hwy figure sits only 4 percent above its combined rating, while the Honda Odyssey’s is 27 percent above. If you know your own model’s figure, enter it and leave the driving type on Mixed.
Real-World MPG vs the EPA Estimate
EPA ratings are a fair baseline, not a promise. In a 2015 AAA analysis of 37,000 mileage records drivers had submitted to the EPA, 8 of 10 reported beating the combined rating, by 12 percent on average. Owners of turbocharged four-cylinder engines came in 4 percent under it, and turbo V6 owners 9 percent under. Those figures are self-reported by people who chose to track their mileage, and the data is a decade old, so treat that upside with care.
What drags real mileage down, per the Department of Energy’s driving efficiency guidance:
- Speed: above 50 mph, each extra 5 mph is like paying $0.31 more per gallon at $4.47.
- Aggressive driving: 15 to 30 percent lower at freeway speeds, 10 to 40 percent lower in stop-and-go traffic.
- Cold: about 15 percent lower city mileage at 20°F than at 77°F, and up to 24 percent lower on 3 to 4 mile trips.
- A roof cargo box: 10 to 25 percent lower at 65 to 75 mph.
- Weight: about 1 percent per extra 100 pounds.
A loaded family trip at 75 mph with a roof box can cancel most of that gain. Choose Mixed for that one, or use what you actually got on your last long drive.
Why Fuel Prices Swing by State
Taxes explain much of the spread. On January 1, 2026, state taxes and fees on gasoline ranged from 70.9 cents a gallon in California to 9.0 cents in Alaska, a 33.5 cent average, on top of an 18.4 cent federal tax unchanged since 1993, according to the EIA. Regional supply adds the rest: the late September survey had the Gulf Coast at $3.924 and the West Coast at $5.724.
The table lists the calculator’s state default prices and what the default midsize sedan costs to run for 12,000 miles at each. These defaults come from a planning table and sit below today’s pump prices, so compare the gaps rather than the levels.
| State | Default price per gallon | Per year, 12,000 miles at 30 mpg |
|---|---|---|
| California | $4.55 | $1,820 |
| Hawaii | $4.45 | $1,780 |
| Washington | $4.20 | $1,680 |
| Nevada | $3.80 | $1,520 |
| Oregon | $3.75 | $1,500 |
| Pennsylvania | $3.25 | $1,300 |
| US average | $3.10 | $1,240 |
| Florida | $3.00 | $1,200 |
| Texas | $2.70 | $1,080 |
| Mississippi | $2.65 | $1,060 |
Same sedan, same miles, $760 a year apart between California and Mississippi. If you live near a state line, filling up on the cheaper side is a simple way to save money without changing how you drive. Within one town, apps such as GasBuddy list posted prices at nearby gas stations, which helps you find the cheapest fill before a long drive.
A Year of Driving: What the Average Vehicle Burns
The average short-wheelbase light-duty vehicle covered 10,812 miles in 2024 and burned 423 gallons, 25.6 miles per gallon on the road, according to FHWA Highway Statistics table VM-1. At $4.47 that is about $1,891 a year, or $158 a month. New vehicles do better: the 2024 model year averaged a record 27.2 miles per gallon in the EPA’s real-world estimate. Switch the estimator to A year of driving to compare your own miles against that benchmark, then try the electric vs gas car calculator to see whether a hybrid or EV would shrink the bill, or the EV charging cost calculator for the charging side.
Fuel is only one running cost. If you are shopping, carry the yearly figure into the car affordability calculator so the loan payment is not the only number in the budget, and price tires, oil and brakes with the car maintenance cost calculator. Underinflated tires also cut mileage, so a pressure check before a road trip pays for itself.
Start with the gas cost calculator by car above: enter the route’s miles, your model’s combined rating and this week’s pump price, then set the driving type to match the trip. If you are unsure of the mix, leave it on Mixed; we would rather you budget a few dollars high than run short at the pump. Check the per-person share before anyone offers to just cover gas. If the yearly figure looks high, compare an efficient model before your next purchase.
Gas Cost Calculator by Car: Common Questions
How do I calculate the gas price for my car?
Divide the miles by your car’s MPG to get gallons, then multiply by the price per gallon. For cost per mile, divide the pump price by the rating: $4.47 at 30 mpg is 14.9 cents a mile.
How much will gas cost for a 1000 mile trip?
About $149 in a 30 mpg car at $4.47 a gallon, or $126.27 if most of it is interstate driving. A 20 mpg large SUV at the same price spends $223.50 at its combined rating.
How many miles is $30 of gas?
At $4.47 a gallon, $30 buys 6.71 gallons: about 201 miles in a 30 mpg sedan, 134 miles in a 20 mpg SUV and 228 miles in a 34 mpg compact.
Can Google Maps calculate gas cost?
Google Maps has an engine type setting (gas, diesel, hybrid or electric) for fuel-efficient routes and can show relative fuel savings between routes, but its help pages do not describe a dollar estimate. Copy the route distance into the calculator to get one.
How much do drivers spend on gas per month?
The average vehicle burned 423 gallons in 2024, about $158 a month at $4.47. A 30 mpg sedan driven 12,000 miles a year costs $149 a month; a 20 mpg large SUV, $224.
Estimates only, not a quote. Prices and fuel economy figures come from the dated sources named on this page; your mileage depends on speed, weather, load and how you drive. Last reviewed: November 2026.