Petrol Prices in France, Speed Limits and French Toll Roads

On Friday 30 October 2026 a litre of SP95-E10 petrol cost €2.095 on average in France, and diesel €2.371. That is the ministry’s official table, not one station’s price board. We are the Vibe South of France community, and this page collects what people ask in their first month behind the wheel here: where to check prices, how fast you may drive in the rain, what has to be in the boot, and how not to get fined on a toll motorway. Every figure carries a date and an official source. Who is driving where, and who has a spare seat, gets sorted out in the “Vibe South of France” community chat on Telegram - roads, relocation and life in the South of France.

This page is part of the moving to the South of France section. Buying a car, the carte grise, insurance and the Crit’Air sticker have their own guide: buying a car in France.

In short: this week’s figures

How much is petrol in France

The average price of a litre of SP95-E10 in France is €2.095 with taxes (Friday 30 October 2026, DGEC), and diesel is €2.371. The figure comes from the DGEC, the energy directorate of the Ministry of Ecological Transition: it takes Friday prices across mainland France excluding Corsica, taxes included (TTC), and publishes them every Monday. We opened the issue with the 30 October prices on 5 November 2026. This table has no separate average by city. We have converted cents per litre into euros:

Over the year E10 went up by 25.7% and diesel by 49.1%, according to the same table. In the last week E10 fell by 1% while diesel rose by 0.8%. If you are used to diesel being the cheaper fuel, it is the other way round here right now: a litre of diesel costs almost 28 cents more than a litre of E10.

How much of that is tax? The same table gives the price before tax (HTT): €1.076 a litre for E10 and €1.368 for diesel. So tax in a litre of E10 comes to about €1.02, close to half the price (49%), and in diesel to about €1, or 42% (our calculation from the DGEC figures). Excise duty alone on petrol in France, in the comparison dated 25 June 2026, is 69 cents a litre against an EU average of 53; on diesel it is 61 against 43.

These numbers last a week. For the current one, use the table on the «Prix des produits pétroliers» page of ecologie.gouv.fr.

Where to see prices at individual stations

prix-carburants.gouv.fr shows the price at every station by commune, postcode and route. The site calls itself the only official state website for fuel prices, and service-public says the same (A16018, 23 September 2026). What you can do there:

• find a station by commune, postcode or département, or along a route, with the stations on the way and their prices;
• pick a fuel: Gazole (B7), SP98 (E5), SP95-E10 (E10), SP95 (E5), GPLc and E85;
• filter by brand and by services (EV charging, car wash, café and others);
• open an account with favourite stations and alerts when a price changes.

Station owners post the prices themselves. Those that sold at least 500 m³ of fuel are obliged to, and they must update the site as soon as the price changes at the pump. A station with lower sales may not be listed at all. The DGCCRF keeps an eye on this; if the pump shows a different price, the site has a complaint form.

Before a long drive the route search is the handiest: you see the stations on your way, with prices, while still at home rather than in the last few kilometres on an empty tank. The site’s data is open and available as XML.

Petrol next door: Spain and Italy

On 23 October 2026 a litre of SP95-E5 cost €1.751 in Spain against €2.181 in France, roughly 43 cents less; in Italy it was €2.006, 17 cents less (DGEC table based on the European Commission bulletin, in the issue with the 30 October prices). The South of France borders both countries, so whether to fill up across the border is a very practical question here:

That day petrol in Spain was about 43 cents a litre cheaper and diesel 46 cents. On a 50-litre tank of petrol that is around €21 (our calculation). The gap with Italy is smaller: 17 cents on petrol and 10 on diesel. Andorra and Monaco are not in the table because they are outside the EU, so we give no prices for them.

Speed limits in France

In France the limit is 130 km/h on motorways (110 in the rain), 80 on two-way roads without a central divider and 50 in built-up areas (service-public F19460, checked 29 December 2025). In full, by road type and weather:

A few more rules from the same card:

• with visibility under 50 m the limit is 50 km/h on any road, motorways included;
• on a two-way road without a divider the local authority may raise the limit from 80 to 90, and may lower any limit, so go by the signs;
• in the far left lane of a motorway, with free-flowing traffic and good weather, you may not drive slower than 80 km/h; otherwise it is a €35 fixed fine.

A permis probatoire is a licence you got for the first time, or again after losing all your points or having it cancelled by a court, starting with 6 points (F2390). These cards say nothing about foreign licences, so don’t assume the third column applies to you without checking. How long you can drive on your own licence and how to exchange it is in our guide to exchanging your driving licence in France.

Speeding fines

Going less than 20 km/h over the limit costs €68 where the limit is above 50 km/h and €135 where it is 50 or lower (F19460).

From 30 km/h over, your licence can be suspended for up to 3 years. From 50 km/h over, the car can also be confiscated and the licence cancelled (F19460). Note the first row: where the limit is 50 km/h or lower, as in most towns, even “just a little” costs €135, twice as much as on a road with a limit above 50.

Drink-driving: limits and fines

The general drink-driving limit is 0.5 g per litre of blood (0.25 mg per litre of exhaled air), and 0.2 g/l for new drivers (F2881, checked 27 August 2026).

New drivers here means those on a permis probatoire; the 0.2 g/l limit, or 0.10 mg/l of air, also applies to learners in conduite accompagnée and to anyone ordered to drive with an alcohol interlock (EAD).

You can be tested without having done anything wrong, and you don’t get to choose the type of test.

What must be in the car

Under F19459 (checked 11 June 2026) two items are compulsory:

• a reflective safety vest with the CE mark, kept within reach rather than in the boot under the suitcases;
• an approved warning triangle.

If you can’t show them straight away at a check, the fine is up to €38. Getting out of a car stopped on the road without the vest, or not marking the car when it is in the way of traffic, can cost up to €750, usually €135. The triangle goes 30 metres or more from the car, with the hazard lights on, but you don’t have to place it if doing so would put your life at risk. You don’t have to carry a breathalyser.

Winter. From 1 November to 31 March, in some communes in mountain areas, you need winter tyres with the alpine symbol or chains in the car; if your tyres are only marked M+S, you still have to carry chains. The card does not list which communes the rule covers. In the South this matters for trips to the Pyrenees and the Alps, and the rule applies every winter, from 1 November to 31 March.

And one thing people don’t expect: a radar detector is banned not just from use but from being in the car at all. The fine is up to €1,500 and minus 6 points.

French toll roads

About 9,200 km of motorways are run under concession and are tolled; roughly another 2,500 km are outside concessions (SDES, 2024 figures: 9,211 and 2,541 km). The companies do not set tolls as they please: tolls are reviewed once a year, on 1 February, under state supervision. In 2026 they rose by 0.86% on average, after +3% in 2024 and +0.92% in 2025 (service-public A16201), ranging from +0.62% to +1.21% by network. In the South, service-public names the ASF network (A7, A10, A62, A63, A64, A89) and Escota (A8, A50, A51), both at +0.62%. For the rate on the A9 and other southern motorways, as for the price of your own route, see the website of the company that runs the road.

If you commute on the same motorway, there is a discount most newcomers don’t know about. Anyone making at least 10 return trips a month on the same route can get 30% off the toll; the subscription costs no more than €2.50 a month, and each company sets its own terms (ecologie.gouv.fr, page updated 29 July 2026).

Companies submit next year’s toll schedules to the state between early November and the end of December.

Roads without barriers: péage en flux libre

Some sections have no toll barriers at all: cameras on gantries above the road read your number plate. According to the ministry’s page (updated 20 October 2025), these are the A79 in the Allier département, the A13-A14 corridor between Paris and Caen and the Boulay interchange on the A4. None of the sections on this list are in the South, but you may well hit one driving to Paris or Normandy.

How to pay:

• with a télépéage tag properly fixed to the windscreen, you don’t need to do anything;
• without a tag you have 72 hours after passing: pay by card on the operator’s website (Sanef or ALIAE) using your number plate;
• or in cash or by card at a Nirio outlet, which means tobacconists and newsagents.

You don’t need to register on the site. A free account just sends reminders or takes the payment automatically.

If you don’t pay

The company draws up a report and sends an avis de paiement to the address on your carte grise. A €90 surcharge is added to the toll, or €10 if you pay within 15 days of the letter being sent. You have 2 months to pay or contest it, after which the amount becomes an increased fine of €375 (F35730, checked 24 June 2026). If an increased fine stays unpaid for 4 months, you can be barred from selling the car, and more than 5 increased fines within 12 months can lead to a fine of up to €7,500.

Crit’Air and ZFE

A Crit’Air sticker is needed to drive into low-emission zones (ZFE-m), and driving there without one usually means a €68 fine (service-public F33371). What it costs, where to order it and what to do with foreign plates is covered in our guide to buying a car in France, in the section “Contrôle technique and Crit’Air”. ZFE rules differ from one city to the next and keep changing, so we don’t summarise them city by city.

How we get to our meet-ups

Many of our meet-ups are out of town, and people get there by car. Before the hike to Montferrand castle on 29 March 2026 the organiser checked in advance who had free seats and sent passengers the driver’s contact and the meeting point. For Mafia in Montpellier on 19 September guests from Toulouse came in shared cars. And from 30 October to 1 November 2026 it was our turn to drive to Toulouse for the Slavic Weekend: about two and a half hours by motorway from Montpellier, with the car line-ups once again sorted out in the chat.

Got a car and a free seat, or need a lift? Write in the chat. You can also ask there where fuel is cheaper on your route.

The “Vibe South of France” community chat on Telegram - roads, trips and life in the South of France

See Also

• Moving to France and the South: documents step by step
• Buying a car in France: papers, carte grise, insurance
• Driving licence in France: exchange, from scratch, points
• EU sanctions for Russians and Belarusians in France
• First 30 days in France: what to do, in order
• Montpellier: a guide for our people
• Toulouse: a guide for our people
• Perpignan: a guide for our people
• Marseille: a guide for our people
• Nice: a guide for our people