Excise duties and mechanisms for partial refunds on diesel in Europe

CNR presents its European overview of the taxation applied to commercial diesel in Europe and details the arrangements for partial refunds of excise duties put in place in each country, applicable to road freight transport companies.

As of 2 March 2020, nine out of twenty-seven European States apply a difference in taxation between “commercial and non-commercial use of gas oil used as propellant”.

New in this 2 March 2020 overview:

• The United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January 2020. Therefore, France has become the second European country where excise duties applied to diesel « for non-commercial use » are the highest, right after Italy.
• Despite its mechanism for partial refund on diesel (reduced by €1.99/hl in 2020 compared with 2019), France remains one of the countries where the excise duties on diesel « for commercial use » are the highest.
• The partial refund of excise duties in Romania is not applied in 2020, the excise duty on diesel « for non-commercial use » in the country is close (€33.79/hl) to the European minimum rate (€33/hl) avoiding the refund mechanism to function.