RALEIGH, N.C. — Filling up in North Carolina keeps getting cheaper. AAA’s daily survey put the statewide average for regular unleaded at about $3.51 a gallon Saturday, down 2 cents from Friday and roughly 13 cents from a week ago.
The bigger swing is over the past month. A month ago, AAA’s statewide average for regular stood near $4.13, so drivers are now paying about 62 cents less per gallon. Diesel has followed, sitting near $5.56 compared with about $6.21 a month ago. Prices still vary across the state: AAA’s Fayetteville average was about $3.35 on Saturday, while Asheville drivers were paying about $3.63.
Most of that drop traces to the state’s motor fuels tax holiday. Lawmakers approved suspending the 41-cent-per-gallon tax on Oct. 7, Gov. Josh Stein signed it two days later, and it took effect Oct. 10. It lasts through Nov. 30. The law says the tax savings must show up in pump prices, though retailers selling fuel they bought before the suspension began do not have to cut prices on that supply.
The result has put North Carolina at the bottom of the national price chart. In AAA’s weekly report on Thursday, North Carolina had the cheapest regular gas of any state, ahead of Georgia, Texas, Tennessee and Louisiana, while the national average was $4.27. Crude oil near $100 a barrel has kept prices from falling faster nationwide, and October is on pace to be the most expensive October on record for gasoline, per the same report.
Attorney General Jeff Jackson launched a program called NC Fuel Check on Oct. 13 that lets drivers report stations they think are not passing along the savings.
The holiday carries a cost for the state budget. The legislature’s nonpartisan Fiscal Research Division projects it will cut motor fuels tax collections by $362.3 million, a gap the law fills from the Stabilization and Inflation Reserve.
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