What actually makes up the price of fuel?

Anyone filling up sees a single number at the pump. Behind that number sits a fixed formula that FPS Economy applies every working day under the Programme Agreement. This piece explains what the maximum price is built from, and why it sometimes moves even though nothing changes in Belgium.

The building blocks of the maximum price

The Directorate-General for Energy at FPS Economy calculates the maximum price of petrol and diesel from five main components:

1. Ex-refinery price - the cost of the finished product, directly tied to the international market for crude oil and refined products.
2. Distribution margin - a maximum gross margin granted to oil companies, covering the distribution and logistics costs of getting the product from the refinery to the end user.
3. Excise duties - flat-rate taxes: a fixed amount per litre, independent of the oil price. Historically they make up a large share of the maximum price.
4. Contributions - including the ASEVA contribution (mandatory strategic reserves), the BOFAS contribution (soil remediation), and, for heating products, the Social Heating Fund.
5. VAT - 21% on the sum of all preceding items, including excise duties.

Source: FPS Economy - Maximum prices.

Two components that move on a fixed calendar

The distribution margin is indexed twice a year, on 1 April and 1 October, via a formula in the technical annex of the Programme Agreement that accounts for the wage index, price index and fuel costs. The ASEVA contribution - which funds the operation of the Energy Storage Agency - is revised every quarter (1 January, 1 April, 1 July, 1 October). Both adjustments are announced transparently in advance by FPS Economy and typically have a limited impact of a few tenths to a few cents per litre.

Source: ASEVA - Energy Storage Agency, FPS Economy - distribution margins.

And then there is the world market

The largest share of the price movement you feel at the pump does not come from a Belgian decision but from the ex-refinery price - the international market price of crude oil and refined products. That reacts very fast to geopolitical events. A current example: disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz in 2026 pushed the global oil price sharply higher, with visible consequences for pump prices across Europe, even though nothing changed on the Belgian tax and margin side.

Source: Brookings - From chokepoint to crisis: the Strait of Hormuz and global oil markets, Rabobank - Effects of the war in the Middle East on the Dutch economy.

Why this matters for you as a driver

Two movements always overlap: the fixed, announced domestic calendar (margin indexation, ASEVA contribution) and the unpredictable world market (crude oil, refining capacity, geopolitical risk). Pompprijs.be tracks both closely: confirmed official FPS rates appear as soon as they are published, and our forecast for the coming days is explicitly marked as a forecast, never as an established fact.