What is the UK Fuel Finder scheme and how accurate are the prices?
Published - 4 min read
How the UK Government's Fuel Finder open data works, where Pennyfill's prices come from, and why you should still check the pump.
What is Fuel Finder?
Fuel Finder is a UK Government scheme that makes petrol station prices available as open data. Forecourt operators report their prices, and the government publishes them so that anyone - comparison websites, apps, sat-nav makers and motoring organisations - can use them.
It follows a review of the road fuel market by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which recommended that fuel prices be published openly so that drivers can compare them more easily and retailers face more competition.
How Pennyfill uses the data
Pennyfill is an independent website. It is not run by, or affiliated with, the UK Government. We collect the published Fuel Finder data every 30 minutes and show it on a live map, by city and by brand, and we calculate our own daily UK averages for the UK Fuel Price Index.
The underlying data is Crown copyright and is used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How accurate are the prices?
The prices come from the retailers themselves, so they are generally a good guide. But no price feed is perfect, and a few things can make a displayed price differ from the pump:
- Timing. Retailers are required to report price changes promptly, and we refresh the data every 30 minutes, but there is always a short delay between a price changing on the forecourt and it appearing online.
- Reporting errors. A price can be mistyped or reported against the wrong fuel. Treat a price that looks far out of line with nearby stations with some caution.
- Gaps. Not every station, or every fuel grade at a station, may be in the data at any given moment.
- Closures and stock. A station may be temporarily closed, or may have run out of a particular fuel.
The price shown on the pump is the one you pay, so always check it before you fill up.
Getting the most from the data
- Check when a station's price was last updated - each station page shows this.
- Compare a few stations rather than relying on a single unusually cheap price.
- Look at the UK Fuel Price Index to see whether prices nationally are rising or falling.
Spotted a wrong price?
If a price on Pennyfill looks wrong, email support@pennyfill.co.uk with the station and what you saw at the pump.