Gas prices across the country are expected to drop significantly for Labor Day weekend compared to recent years. Online gas price tracker GasBuddy projects prices to average $3.15 per gallon. That’s down 14 cents from the same time last year. This would be the lowest price since 2020, though the Covid-19 pandemic was in progress at that point and drastically reducing travel.
Despite the annual drop, gas prices in around half of all U.S. states have risen in the last month. Experts say this is because of outages at refineries. However, they expect prices to fall again as September progresses when cheaper winter gas is brought in and travel dies down.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, expects the national average to drop below $3.00/g this fall. He does warn of factors that could send prices on an upward trend again. These potential causes include hurricanes, tariffs, and the Russia/Ukraine war.
GasBuddy is the authoritative voice for gas prices and the only source for station-level data. GasBuddy's survey updates 288 times every day from the most diverse list of sources covering nearly 150,000 stations nationwide, the most comprehensive and up-to-date in the country. GasBuddy's averages, graphs, maps and historical pricing data covering the U.S. and Canada is available 24/7 at prices.GasBuddy.com.
