Fuel prices in Guatemala

Fuel Prices in Guatemala: What You Pay at the Pump and Why

As of the latest update, gasoline in Guatemala costs about $1.208 per liter, which works out to roughly $4.57 per US gallon. In the local currency that is around 9.22 GTQ per liter. Diesel runs a little cheaper at about $1.144 per liter. Measured against the global benchmark, Guatemala sits well below the world average of $1.484 per liter, ranking 48th out of 170 countries tracked — meaning fuel here is cheaper than in most of the world, though far from the cheapest.

Why Guatemalan Fuel Is Priced the Way It Is

Guatemala is not an oil producer of any meaningful scale. It imports virtually all of its refined gasoline and diesel, with most supply arriving by ship and overland from the United States and other refiners in the region. That import dependence is the single most important fact about its pump prices: when global crude and refined-product markets move, Guatemala feels it quickly, with little domestic cushion.

The retail price you see at the station is built from a few stacked layers. First comes the international cost of the refined product itself. On top of that sits the fuel excise tax — the Impuesto a la Distribución de Petróleo — a fixed per-gallon levy that the government collects on gasoline and diesel. Because this tax is a fixed amount rather than a percentage, its weight in the final price actually shrinks when crude prices spike and grows when they fall. Distribution, transport, and the station's own margin round out the total.

Unlike some of its neighbors, Guatemala does not run a large, permanent consumer fuel subsidy. The government has occasionally stepped in with temporary relief — for example, capping or partially absorbing diesel costs for public transport during sharp price surges — but the baseline policy lets the market pass through international costs to drivers. That is why local prices tend to track world oil so closely.

The Currency Factor

Fuel is bought internationally in US dollars, so the value of the Guatemalan quetzal (GTQ) against the dollar matters a great deal. The quetzal has historically been one of the more stable currencies in Central America, which has helped keep fuel-price swings somewhat contained compared with countries that suffer rapid depreciation. A steadier exchange rate means imported fuel does not get a second, currency-driven price shock on top of the crude-oil one — a problem that hits import-reliant economies like Bangladesh and Madagascar harder.

What the Price History Tells Us

Looking back over roughly the past decade, from July 2016 to June 2026, gasoline in Guatemala has averaged about $1.005 per liter. The cheapest it ever got was $0.621 per liter on 11 May 2020 — the depths of the pandemic demand collapse, when global oil prices briefly cratered. The most expensive was $1.497 per liter on 23 May 2022, during the post-pandemic and Ukraine-war energy spike.

That is a more than two-fold swing between the low and the high, which underlines how exposed Guatemala is to global markets rather than to anything it controls domestically. Today's price of $1.208 sits above the ten-year average but comfortably below the 2022 peak — a sign that the worst of the recent energy crunch has eased without prices returning to their pandemic-era lows.

For comparison, drivers in nearby Colombia and in Puerto Rico face their own mix of taxes and subsidies, and you can see how every country stacks up on our world fuel prices overview.

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