Where Every Lira You Pay for Gasoline Goes: SCT, Refiner's Share, and VAT

Ownership and Costs
Creation: 23 October 2026

Roughly one third of every lira you pay for gasoline is tax; what's more, VAT is levied on top of the SCT, meaning tax is charged on top of the tax itself.

Share This Page

Roughly one in every three liras you pay for gasoline is tax; the remainder consists of the product cost, distributor and dealer shares, and small regulatory deductions. The mechanism that actually determines the price at the pump is not international oil itself, but the cascading structure of these items that amplify one another: VAT is charged at a percentage on top of the SCT, which is added as a fixed amount. Below, we explain each link of this structure using enduring concepts rather than giving current prices.

Highlights

About 38% of the pump price of gasoline consists of taxes; this share is around 32% for diesel and 29% for LPG.
The SCT is a fixed-amount tax, meaning a set sum; it is updated twice a year, in January and July.
VAT is calculated at 20% on a base that includes the SCT; in other words, a tax is levied on a tax.
The product cost depends on two variables: the international product price and the USD/TRY exchange rate.
As of March 1, 2026, 75% of international increases are absorbed by the SCT, while the rest is passed on to the pump.

How the gasoline price is formed: the chain from the pump back to the refinery

In Türkiye, a liberalized pricing system has been in effect for fuels since January 1, 2005. This arrangement is valid under the Petroleum Market Law, not the Pump Market Law; distribution companies are free to set the terminal sale price, and dealers the pump price, according to competitive conditions. The state does not announce a specific price; some of the items that make up the price are fixed by tax legislation.

The chain passes through four links. First, the refinery sale price is formed: the SCT and EMRA share are added to the ex-refinery price, with VAT excluded. The ex-refinery price, in turn, is derived from CIF Mediterranean product prices published in the Mediterranean–Italian market and the daily dollar exchange rate. Then the distributor's margin and service fee form the terminal sale price, after which dealer costs and transportation are added to create the recommended pump price. The dealer has the final say according to its own competitive conditions.

Let us also address a conceptual confusion that has persisted for years here: the Brent you hear about in the news is crude oil; what reaches the pump is a refined product. The difference between the two is called the refinery margin, and it varies by season and demand. That is why it is not unusual for diesel not to fall by the same rate when Brent drops 3%. In the past, far fewer drivers were aware of this distinction; today, information on price formation is everywhere, yet those who know the difference between the product and the raw material are still a minority.

The distribution of money in a liter of gasoline

Bir litre benzinin fiyatının yaklaşık 38 lirası vergiye gidiyor; ürünün kendisi ise pompadaki bedelin yarısından azını oluşturuyor.

The distribution below is a composition calculation built on representative, rounded amounts per liter; it is not an official ledger, but a skeleton showing how the price can be read item by item. The figures change over time and by province, while the structure of the items does not.

Item	Gasoline	Diesel	LPG
Product cost	44.72 TL	63.49 TL	26.47 TL
Distributor + dealer share	3.45 TL	3.45 TL	3.10 TL
EMRA share and other	₺0.32	₺0.34	₺0.22
SCT (fixed)	₺16.52	₺14.87	₺5.24/kg
VAT (20%)	₺13.00	₺16.43	₺7.01
Pump price	₺78.01	₺98.58	₺42.04
Share of taxes	38%	32%	29%

The small size of the distributor and dealer shares is surprising at first glance; these items, worth only a few liras per liter, have long been rightly pointed out by those in the industry who assess it with a curious eye as the thinnest part on paper and the most debated one in field reality. The EMRA share, in turn, is an income share at the level of 2.54 TL/M3 for white products and 2.69 TL/TON for black products; technical deductions such as marker costs and stock obligations are also added to this.

Tax on tax: Why is VAT calculated on top of the SCT

The least known and most debated link of this structure is the tax base arrangement. VAT is calculated at 20% on the total including the SCT. In other words, VAT is also levied on top of the SCT; although its legal basis is disputed, this is the practice, and the matter has been taken all the way to Council of State referral decisions. Let us make it concrete: when the fixed SCT of ₺16.52 is added to gasoline, this amount rises to ₺19.82 at the pump together with the VAT. If we reduce the formula to a single line: pump price = (product cost + margins + other shares + SCT) × 1.20.

The meaning of this arrangement for the driver is as follows: every addition to the SCT automatically enlarges the VAT as well. Although the tax items appear to be two independent items, there is a multiplier relationship between them. It is the dry observation of the old-generation fuel reporters: when debating the tax burden on gasoline, whoever forgets the VAT has brushed aside half of the calculation. Public demands have focused precisely on this point; proposals in politics to lower the 20% VAT rate on fuel and to remove the VAT embedded in the SCT are demands that target this multiplier effect.

What is fixed SCT, and when does it change

In fuel, the SCT is not a percentage-based tax but a fixed one: a fixed amount per liter is added regardless of the product price. That is why SCT amounts are expressed in liras. The update schedule is also clear: twice a year, in January and July, by presidential decree, mostly taking into account the producer inflation of the previous six months. The amounts given as examples in institutional sources are stated per cubic meter; for 95-octane unleaded gasoline, 2,376.50 TL/M3, and for diesel, 1,794.50 TL/M3, each belong to one of these tables and change from period to period.

The exel mobil and the changing formula of 2026

The exel mobil is a temporary mechanism used to balance the reflection of international price and exchange rate movements on the pump price: when international costs rise, the SCT is lowered to absorb part of the increase, and when prices fall, the opposite is done. With the Presidential Decree published on March 5, 2026, a 75% rate was introduced into this system; 75% of international increases would be covered by the SCT, and the remainder would be reflected at the pump. According to the item-by-item calculation made by a member of parliament, this transition reduced the SCT rate on gasoline from 25.38% to 21.12%, and the total tax rate from 42.62% to 38.34%; in return, however, the pump price rose from 58.42 TL to 59.33 TL. The increase being absorbed by the SCT meant another increase at the pump; the mechanism does not produce decreases, it softens the pace of increases.

In autumn, the picture changed once again. The expiration of the automatic pricing mechanism at the end of September 2026 came onto the agenda; as of October 1, an SCT increase of 10.40 TL on gasoline and 3 TL on diesel was projected, and with 20% VAT added, it was calculated that this would correspond to a pump price increase of 12.48 TL on gasoline and 3.60 TL on diesel. In August, on the other hand, the effective SCT on diesel had been zeroed out as of August 12 until the end of the month, and was then gradually stepped back to 3.00 TL/lt. On the other hand, it was regulated that the SCT increase, which would normally be made at the YI-UFE (domestic producer price index) rate, would not be applied for the July-December 2026 period. In short, within the same year the mechanism changed direction three times; the old observation that a fixed tax is the most flexible item in politics is confirmed under all conditions.

Why doesn't gasoline fall at the same rate when oil gets cheaper

This question answers itself when one is reminded that the largest variable item in the pump price is the product cost. A significant portion of the liter price consists of SCT, held as a fixed amount, and margins; when crude oil gets 10% cheaper, only the product cost item changes, while the SCT stays in place. If the exchange rate is also rising, part of the decrease in TL terms is wiped out. The same logic works in the upward direction: the product cost depends on two variables, the international product price and the dollar/TL exchange rate. Even if one rises while the other stays constant, the cost increases; when both rise at once, a shock picture appears at the pump.

Türkiye's position amplifies this sensitivity. The country's import dependency on oil is around 90%; global shocks are reflected in the domestic market in a short time. This is precisely why the automatic pricing mechanism exists: to manage not the reflection itself, but the speed of the reflection. Price differences between provinces, meanwhile, are independent of taxes being the same across the country; the difference largely comes from transportation distance and dealer margin. The entirety of the tax on a liter of gasoline is the same in every province; what changes is the last few lira.

Reading the fuel item correctly in a driver's ownership budget

Fuel can be a larger annual item in the cost of vehicle ownership than comprehensive insurance or motor vehicle tax; therefore, knowing the structure of the price is directly related to budgeting. Seeing that there are permanent shares in the pump price prevents overreacting to international news. The following three questions are among the most frequently asked in daily life, and the mechanism above answers all of them within the same framework:

Why is the SCT stated in lira? It is a fixed tax; the same amount is added regardless of the product price.
Is half of gasoline and diesel tax? Historically, this share approached 50%; in today's representative calculation, 38% of gasoline and 32% of diesel is tax. The rate moves inversely to the product cost.
Is VAT on top of the SCT? Yes; VAT is calculated at 20% on a base that includes the SCT.

A warning for those making international comparisons: while the average gasoline price worldwide is around 1.59 dollars per liter (October 2026), Türkiye has been measured as one of Europe's relatively cheap gasoline-selling countries; but these tables reflect differences in tax structures between countries, and when read in dollar terms they can be misleading due to exchange rate effects. The honest form of comparison is not the price per liter, but the tax's share within the price. As for your own budget, there is only one sustainable measure: knowing how much the non-tax component per liter can change and planning your annual mileage accordingly. As far as I have seen over thirty years, the driver who spends their money wisely at the pump is the one who has understood its structure, not the price.