Motoring

How much South Africans spend on petrol vs the UK, Switzerland, USA, and others

Staff Writer

 ·15 May 2023

Although South African petrol prices are lower than in other countries, South Africans spend a larger proportion of their income on petrol compared to most other nations.

According to globalpetrolprices.com, South Africans currently pay R22.98 per litre of petrol – this number is calculated by averaging the inland price (R23.34) and coastal price (R22.62) for a litre of 95 unleaded in South Africa.

This puts South African petrol prices at 95 out of the 168 countries covered by globalpetrolprices.com, which is cheaper than nine additional countries compared to last year when we ranked 86th.

All the provided figures are correct as of 01 May 2023.

The top fifteen countries with the highest fuel prices are listed in the table below (all prices were provided in Rands).

Notably, many countries that pay a significant amount for petrol – especially those in Europe – depend on Russian oil. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has devasted global energy supply chains, resulting in much higher fuel prices. However, this has somewhat dampened in contrast to 2022.

Africa has not been immune to this, either, with South Africa through to the Central African Republic, a net gasoline importer, paying more for petrol.

Switzerland, Norway, and Luxembourg, on the other hand, are nations that are incredibly oil-rich but charge a significant amount for petrol. This is because the fuel in the Nordic country is highly taxed.

Moreover, these nations are highly invested in electric cars – four of five new vehicles are electric – and high fuel prices incentivise consumers away from petrol-fuelled vehicles.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong and Monaco are both city-states that rely on refined fuel imports and thus pay a lot more for petrol.

Proportional spend

Although many countries spend more per litre of petrol, not all of them pay a greater proportion of their yearly earnings on fuel than South Africans.

Below is a table of the average annual earnings in OECD countries after tax (2022), converted to rands, and split across 365 days for the daily average:

South Africa is not an OECD nation, so we have taken the most recent data from the BankservAfrica Take-home Pay Index, which puts the average South African’s pay after tax at R15,321 a month or R504 a day.

This data should also present South Africa in a better light as the other countries mentioned in the table only have income stats from the end of last year, which will be lower than this year as it has not been adjusted for inflation.

When expressed as a percentage of daily income, it’s clear that South Africa, despite having a relatively lower local fuel price, spends far more on petrol than most other OECD nations at 4.56% of daily income – putting the country in the top five most expensive countries.

Turkey, Mexico, Hungary, and the Slovak Republic are the only countries that spend a larger proportion of their salaries on fuel than South Africans, with Turkey the highest at 7.16%.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the USA has the lowest proportional spend, at just 0.74%.

All conversions were done at the respective currency/ZAR exchange rates on 15 May 2023.

Read: Bleak outlook for petrol prices in South Africa