Frequently Asked Questions

Three reasons stack on top of each other. First, taxes: Metro Vancouver drivers pay an 18.5¢/L TransLink levy plus 6.75¢ to the BC Transportation Financing Authority and 1.75¢ provincial motor fuel tax — 27¢/L of provincial and local tax before GST, the highest in Canada. Second, supply: the region has just one refinery (Parkland in Burnaby) covering roughly a quarter of demand, with the rest arriving via the Trans Mountain pipeline and Pacific Northwest imports, so the Vancouver wholesale rack runs 15–25¢/L above Edmonton's. Third, real estate and operating costs squeeze out low-margin stations — downtown Vancouver famously has almost none left. The result is the highest big-city pump prices in North America.

Our collection job checks for new station reports every hour, and the price pages are rebuilt several times a day. A station's price only changes when someone reports a new one, so each price shows the time it was reported. Reports up to 36 hours old count as current; reports from the last 12 hours rank ahead of older ones in every "cheapest" list, and anything older is marked "last known".

Pump prices come from community-reported Canadian fuel-price feeds, including public GasBuddy reports, each with its own report time. We do not collect prices by hand. The daily forecast also uses WTI crude (U.S. FRED) and Vancouver wholesale rack prices (Petro-Canada postings, with Natural Resources Canada data as a fallback). See the About page for the full methodology.

A price is only as current as its last report. We don't measure how far reports drift from the pump, so treat older reports with care: check the report time next to each price, and always confirm the pump price before you start filling.

We cover the major chains: Chevron, Shell, Petro-Canada, Esso, Husky, Mobil, Super Save, 7-Eleven, the Metro Vancouver Costco gas bars, and more. Coverage depends on what's included in our data provider's database. Independent or very new stations may be missing. If you notice a gap, please use the Contact page to let us know.

Sometimes — the tax boundaries are real. The 18.5¢/L TransLink levy only applies inside the Metro Vancouver transit service region, so crossing from Langley into Abbotsford drops the tax burden by about 12.5¢/L instantly; if you're already in Langley or heading up the Fraser Valley, topping up past the boundary is nearly free money. The US border run to Blaine or Point Roberts, WA can save substantially more when the exchange rate cooperates — Washington gas is often the equivalent of 30–50¢/L cheaper — but factor in border waits, the drive, and the litre limits worth carrying. As a pure gas run it rarely pays for downtown residents; as a top-up on a trip you're already making, it absolutely does.

No. If you use the "Nearest to Me" feature, your GPS coordinates are used only within your browser session to find nearby stations. We transmit them to our API server (over HTTPS) solely to filter the station list by distance. Our application does not save the coordinates in its database, include them in analytics events, or associate them with a profile. You can also search by postal code to avoid sharing your GPS location entirely.

This happens when our data provider doesn't have a current price for a particular station. It can also happen with very small independents, recently opened locations, or stations that rarely appear in community price reports. We still show the station's location on the map so you can check the price in person if it's nearby.

Yes! Use the Contact page to submit a correction. Include the station name, address, and the correct price you saw at the pump. We'll flag it to our data provider and update the record as soon as possible.

Yes, where stations report them. Regular (87 octane) is the default across the site, and there are dedicated pages for the cheapest diesel and premium (91+ octane) prices in Vancouver. Each station page also lists mid-grade, premium and diesel prices when they have been reported, dated by the station's latest report.

No. We are a completely independent comparison tool. No gas station, fuel company, or refinery has any ownership stake in this site or pays us to rank stations in a particular order. Stations always appear sorted by price (cheapest first) and/or distance — nothing else.

Costco operates only two gas bars in all of Metro Vancouver — Port Coquitlam and Langley — and none in Vancouver proper, where land costs make the big-footprint gas bar format impractical. Both locations are typically 5–15 cents per litre below the major branded stations because Costco runs fuel as a member benefit rather than a profit centre. You need an active membership to fill up, and the queues at both sites reflect their price-floor status for the whole region.

Canadian gas prices are quoted in cents per litre (¢/L). One US gallon equals approximately 3.785 litres. So if Vancouver gas is 190 ¢/L ($1.90/L), that works out to roughly $7.19 per US gallon — useful context before a Blaine border run.