May 11, 2026
Is the US government going to suspend the gas tax? President Trump says — yeah.
But two important things you need to know. One — Trump can’t suspend the federal gas tax on his own. He can’t sign an executive order or do anything else to make it go away. The only way the federal gas tax can be suspended for any amount of time is if both the House and the Senate pass a bill to make it happen.
And two — even if they did that — Trump is actually correct. The federal gas tax accounts for only about 18.4 cents per gallon of regular and premium gas, and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel. Of course, your state taxes are also added — but that’s a completely separate issue, and the federal government has no say over whether your state would suspend its gas tax.
So let’s look at how much this would actually save the average American driver. Today, the national average for a gallon of regular gas is $4.52. If Congress today passed this hypothetical bill to suspend the federal gas tax, that would make the national average for a gallon of regular gas $4.34. So it would still be well over four bucks a gallon.
But hey — saving money is saving money, right? So why would anyone in Congress choose not to support this effort to suspend the federal gas tax? Well, that 18.4 cents and that 24.4 cents in federal taxes get funneled into the Highway Trust Fund, which helps pay for construction, maintenance, and repair of the country’s interstate highway system, and also mass transit systems like railways, subways, and bridges. Of course, the states also contribute to all these things, but so does the federal government.
So the most recent federal data from the Congressional Budget Office is from 2025. In that year, the U.S. government collected about $39 billion in taxes from gasoline and diesel. That’s about $3 billion per month in revenue that goes toward all those road and transit projects. So if Congress cuts off that funding — by suspending the gas tax — projects could sit idle or infrastructure could get worse in your state.
The other problem is the gas tax of 18.4 cents and 24.4 cents hasn’t been changed since 1993. And of course, inflation is a lot different in 2026 than it was 33 years ago. That has left the Highway Trust Fund running low because construction costs are getting more expensive while revenue continues to stay flat.
So is Congress going to take this up or what? Well, since Trump seems to be on board with this, it’s likely that lots of Republicans will be on board too. In fact, just today, Senator Josh Hawley said he’s going to introduce a bill in the Senate to suspend the gas tax. But there are no details yet on how that would work or how long it might last.
Info from highway trust fund here.
Trump talking about gas tax here.
Gas tax trends here.
