The price of fuel in Argentina has increased sharply since Javier Milei became president in December 2023, with the cost of regular gasoline rising by 514.8 percent through March 2026.
This increase has had a significant impact on drivers across the country, including those in Jujuy. In November 2023, a liter of regular gasoline cost $311. By April 2026, the reference price at YPF service stations exceeded $2,000 per liter.
Filling a standard 60-liter tank with regular gasoline now costs more than $118,000. For diesel users, the total can surpass $133,000. The rise is especially notable when compared to prices just over two years ago; during the past year alone, regular gasoline increased almost twice as much as general inflation.
There are three main reasons for these increases: The government ended agreements that kept prices artificially low and aimed to align local prices with international levels; taxes on fuel that had been frozen since 2021 were reinstated and now account for about 35 percent of each liter’s price; and an initial currency devaluation in December 2023—when the dollar jumped from $366 to $800—combined with conflicts in the Middle East raised global oil barrel costs.
As a result of these higher costs, many drivers have switched to compressed natural gas (CNG). Conversions to CNG systems grew by about seventy percent last year because they allow savings of up to sixty percent per fill-up. While ten liters of gasoline cost around $22,000 pesos, an equivalent CNG tank fill is only about $9,000 pesos. This difference has made CNG a preferred alternative for those who rely on their vehicles for work or need to manage household budgets carefully.
With these developments, Argentina now ranks among the top three countries with the highest fuel prices in South America after Uruguay and Peru.
