Statewide average updated daily • Source: AAA
Alaska presents one of the most paradoxical fuel pricing situations of any state — it has the lowest state gas tax in the country by a wide margin yet consistently ranks among the most expensive states for retail gasoline. Alaska produces enormous quantities of crude oil on the North Slope — it was once the second largest oil producing state in the country — yet Alaskans pay premium prices for gasoline because the state’s extreme geography, small population, and limited refining capacity create logistics costs that no low tax rate can fully overcome.
Alaska’s state gas tax is just 9 cents per gallon — the lowest of any state in the country by a wide margin and less than half the rate charged by the next lowest states. Yet this minimal tax does almost nothing to offset the extraordinary logistical costs of supplying fuel to Alaska’s communities.
Alaska has one refinery of significance — the Tesoro refinery in Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula — that supplies fuel for Anchorage and south-central Alaska. However this single facility cannot supply the entire state, and many communities — particularly in Interior Alaska, rural Western Alaska, and the Southeast panhandle — receive fuel by barge, small aircraft, or snowmobile in winter, adding extraordinary logistical cost.
Communities like Nome, Bethel, Barrow, and hundreds of remote Alaska villages pay among the highest fuel prices of any populated places in the United States — not because of taxes but because of the sheer cost of getting any goods to these extraordinarily isolated locations.
Did you know? Some remote Alaska villages pay over $10 per gallon for gasoline that must be flown in by small aircraft or delivered by barge during the brief summer shipping season. Alaska’s Trans-Alaska Pipeline carries crude oil 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope to the ice-free port of Valdez — yet almost none of this crude is refined in Alaska, meaning the state exports its oil and imports its finished gasoline. Alaska has no statewide road system connecting all its communities — a majority of Alaska’s villages are not accessible by road at all, making Alaska the only state where a significant portion of the population has no option to drive to a gas station.
Compare today’s average in Alaska with nearby states to understand regional price differences.
Learn more about what drives gas prices across the United States.
Crude oil prices are the biggest driver of what you pay at the pump. For U.S. and global crude oil production data updated from EIA figures, see Oil Production Live.