How much do European countries raise per driver from road taxes and fuel duties (latest comparable dataset)?
Executive summary
Across comparable recent public datasets, European governments collect roughly between €1,200 and €2,900 per vehicle annually in road- and vehicle-related taxes, with fuel excise duties adding a variable per‑liter burden (and VAT on top) that ranges from around the EU minimum of about €0.33–€0.36 per liter in the lowest‑tax countries to much higher rates elsewhere; headline per‑driver numbers come from ACEA’s per‑vehicle tax revenue figures and fuel duty tables compiled by the Tax Foundation and EU sources, but differences in scope and methodology matter for any direct comparison (ACEA; Tax Foundation; EEA) [1] [2] [3].
1. What the comparable datasets actually measure
The clearest “per driver” metric available in the assembled reporting is ACEA’s estimate of average annual tax revenue per motor vehicle, which aggregates registration, annual ownership and use taxes and fuel/diesel levies to produce country‑level per‑vehicle figures — for example, Belgium €2,896, Austria €2,661 and Ireland €2,438 at the top end, and Greece €1,196 and Portugal €1,290 at the low end — but ACEA’s series is an industry association product and captures a broad bundle of vehicle taxes rather than isolating fuel duties alone [1].
2. How fuel duties translate into per‑driver revenue (and their floor)
Fuel duties are reported as excise per liter and are joined by VAT in retail prices; Tax Foundation’s European fuel‑tax datasets show EU minimum excise levels around €0.33–€0.36 per liter for petrol in low‑tax members (Bulgaria and Malta cited at approximately €0.33/liter; the EU minimum cited at about €0.359/liter in Tax Foundation reporting), and most countries levy higher per‑liter excises on petrol than on diesel, meaning the fiscal take per motorist from fuel varies with national rates and driving/fuel consumption patterns [2] [4].
3. Aggregating per‑vehicle taxes and fuel duties: rough magnitude and caveats
Put together, ACEA’s per‑vehicle tax revenue (roughly €1,200–€2,900 per vehicle per year across major EU markets) captures the combined fiscal pressure on car owners, while fuel excise levels determine how much each liter consumed contributes to state coffers; converting excise rates to a per‑driver annual number requires assumptions about average kilometers and fuel efficiency — an exercise not standardised across sources and therefore not directly provided in these datasets, which limits the precision of a single “per driver from fuel” figure without additional consumption data [1] [4].
4. Policy context, tensions and alternative perspectives
Officials and analysts stress that fuel taxes serve revenue and environmental objectives and that fuel tax receipts are declining with electrification, prompting considerations of road‑charging for EVs (Iceland and Swiss policy studies cited as pilots and proposals) — Oxera and national estimates suggest distance‑based levies as partial substitutes for lost fuel duty revenue, but political resistance and constitutional constraints complicate reforms; meanwhile industry groups like ACEA emphasize tax burdens and incentives for electrification from a manufacturers’ perspective, while think tanks highlight consumer pain from high fuel shares of retail price, revealing differing agendas in how the same figures are framed [5] [1] [6].
5. Bottom line and limits of the available reporting
The best directly comparable headline is ACEA’s per‑vehicle tax revenue: approximately €1,200 at the bottom to €2,900 at the top per vehicle per year across EU markets, supplemented by fuel excise rates that start near the EU minimum of about €0.33–€0.36 per liter in the lowest‑tax countries and rise from there — translating excise rates into precise “per driver from fuel” totals requires country‑level consumption and mileage data not standardised in these sources, and readers should note ACEA’s aggregation scope and the Tax Foundation’s excise‑focused framing when interpreting the numbers [1] [2] [4].