Pricele #91: Gasoline (1 litre) in Switzerland 🇨🇭
The puzzle for 29 September 2026 asked what a litre of gasoline costs in Switzerland. Here is the answer and the context behind it.
The answer
Gasoline (1 litre) · Switzerland
$2.28
1.84 CHF
About 4 minutes of the average local wage buys a litre of gasoline.
That's the #3 priciest of the 32 countries in the game.
Source: Numbeo (crowd-sourced), retrieved 2026-08.
About gasoline
Crude oil trades on a world market at one price, so the pump price is almost pure policy. Countries that tax fuel heavily land near the top of the table; oil producers that subsidise it land at the bottom, sometimes below what it costs to refine. The spread between the cheapest and most expensive country here is wider than for any other item in the game.
Where Switzerland sits
Of the 32 countries priced for gasoline, Switzerland ranks #3 from the top at $2.28, 1.7× the median of $1.38.
Switzerland is the most expensive country in the game for almost every item, and the Big Mac Index has used it as the standing example of an overvalued currency for years. High wages are the main cause, and Swiss prices look far less extreme once you divide by what people earn. It is also, strikingly, a low-tax country on consumption: VAT is 8.1%, among the lowest in Europe, and food is charged at just 2.6%. Switzerland is therefore the cleanest disproof in this table of the idea that expensive countries are expensive because of tax. Almost none of the Swiss premium is collected by the state.
| Nearby on the gasoline table | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| France | $2.12 | 1.84 EUR | 7 min |
| Norway | $2.27 | 21.54 NOK | 5 min |
| Switzerland | $2.28 | 1.84 CHF | 4 min |
| Netherlands | $2.43 | 2.11 EUR | 7 min |
| Singapore | $2.47 | 3.17 SGD | 9 min |
What else costs what in Switzerland
| Item | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Mac | $9.08 | 7.3 CHF | 16 min |
| Coca-Cola (330ml can) | $2.46 | 2.2 CHF | 4 min |
| Cappuccino | $6.31 | 5.1 CHF | 11 min |
| Milk (1 litre) | $2.25 | 1.82 CHF | 4 min |
| Eggs (dozen) | $7.68 | 6.21 CHF | 14 min |
| Apples (1 kg) | $3.72 | 3.01 CHF | 7 min |
| Diesel (1 litre) | $2.72 | 2.21 CHF | 5 min |
| Electricity (100 kWh) | $38.20 | 31 CHF | 67 min |
| Natural gas (100 kWh) | $18.10 | 14.7 CHF | 32 min |
| Cigarettes (20-pack) | $10.44 | 9.2 CHF | 18 min |
| Beer (330ml) | $1.44 | 1.27 CHF | 3 min |
| Spirits (750ml bottle) | $24.20 | 21.32 CHF | 43 min |
| Vape e-liquid (1 ml) | $2.38 | 2.1 CHF | 4 min |
| Mobile data (1 GB) | $7.29 | — | 13 min |
| A day's healthy diet | $4.19 | 3.48 CHF | 7 min |
Go deeper
See the full table for gasoline in every country or everything priced in Switzerland.