US Diesel Sets Record $6.23 a Gallon, AAA Figures Show

The national average price of diesel in the United States reached $6.2301 a gallon on September 14, 2026, the highest level AAA has on record. The motor club's price table, stamped “Price as of 9/14/26,” lists it as the all-time high for the fuel, above the $5.0165 peak regular gasoline set on June 14, 2022. Regular unleaded averaged $4.3163 the same day, leaving diesel about $1.91 a gallon more expensive than gasoline.

The climb has been steep and recent. AAA's table puts diesel at $6.2040 a day earlier, $5.9015 a week earlier and $5.4265 a month earlier. The year-ago average was $3.6923, which places the current price roughly 69 percent above where it stood twelve months ago. NBC News reported that the national average first crossed $6 on the morning of Friday, September 11, at $6.05, passing the previous record of $5.82 set in June 2022.

The pressure is coming from supply rather than demand. NBC News reported that refineries producing diesel have been knocked offline or destroyed both in Eastern Europe, where the Russia-Ukraine war continues, and in the Middle East, while the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has tightened flows of crude and refined fuel. Russia, normally the largest diesel exporter after the United States, imposed a sweeping diesel export ban in July after Ukrainian drone strikes damaged its refineries; NBC News reported that the ban runs at least through the end of September. The same report put the national diesel average up 60 percent since the war with Iran began in late February, and U.S. crude oil up more than 25 percent over the past month.

Diesel is priced at the pump but paid for at the checkout. “The cost of diesel gets into just about everything,” KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk told NBC News, naming farming, food and freight; she expects the fuel to remain an “inflationary problem” for months. Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, told NBC News that “consumers should be prepared to pay higher inflation for anything that requires being shipped,” and said groceries are especially exposed because supermarkets already work on thin margins. Bernard Yaros, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, told Fox News Digital that diesel is “the workhorse fuel for the U.S. economy”: “Diesel powers the irrigation pumps, the tractors in the field and the trucks that bring food from the farm to your local grocery store.”

Farms are among the first places the bill lands. Mark Mueller, a fourth-generation Iowa farmer who chairs the Iowa Corn Growers Association, told NBC News that the price “will push me right to the edge,” on top of this year's higher fertilizer costs. What comes next depends largely on how quickly damaged refining capacity returns and on whether Russia extends its export ban past the end of September. Neither AAA nor the economists quoted has put a date on any relief.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.