Boston Gas Prices

Boston gas prices this week

The Boston metro averaged $4.176 per gallon for regular gasoline in the week ending Oct 26, 2026. The metro average fell $0.070 from the previous week, and it is $0.031 above the Massachusetts statewide average of $4.145. Against the national average of $4.269, Boston is $0.093 cheaper.

Boston fuel prices are driven by harbor delivery costs and some of the highest station operating costs in the country. The metro average published by the EIA covers Suffolk, Middlesex, Norfolk, Essex, and Plymouth counties.

What drives prices in Boston

• All fuel arrives by tanker or barge at Boston harbor terminals.
• Station rents and labor costs in the urban core are among the highest in the U.S.
• The metro area requires a reformulated summer blend that costs more to produce.

Metro averages smooth out station-level differences, but they are still the right baseline for budgeting. A station a few blocks from a highway ramp can easily charge 20 cents more than one on a secondary road in the same county.

Areas covered by the Boston average

The metro series includes the core city and the surrounding communities that share its fuel distribution network: Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, Quincy, Newton, Chelsea. Prices in outlying counties can run 10 to 25 cents lower or higher depending on local taxes and distance from the nearest terminal.

Commuting cost in Boston

A typical Boston-area commute is short in miles but long in minutes. Stop-and-go traffic raises fuel burn, so cost per mile is higher than the pump price alone suggests.

A simple benchmark: a 30-mile round trip at 28 MPG costs about $4.47 per day at the current Boston average. Over 260 working days that is roughly $1163 per year. Use the commute cost calculator with your real mileage, and the gas mileage calculator if you are not sure what MPG your car actually returns in city traffic.

How to pay less at the pump in Boston

1. Start with membership warehouses: Costco, Sam's Club, and BJ's typically undercut nearby stations by 10 to 30 cents.
2. Check stations one exit past your usual stop — highway-adjacent stations price for convenience, not for locals.
3. Use a station-level app for the final address; use this page to judge whether the price you see is normal for the metro.
4. Fix the cheap things first: tire pressure, air filter, and removing unused roof racks each return 2 to 6 percent of fuel economy.

How this page is built

The Boston series is the EIA's published metro retail average, updated weekly and restated in dollars per gallon including taxes. We rebuild this page every week after the survey release and print the survey week at the top so there is no ambiguity about the date. See the methodology and data sources pages for details.