Temperatures in the U.S. are heating up, but the national average price for regular gas keeps falling on Thursday, dropping to $3.838 per gallon on Thursday, according to AAA. It is the second straight week that fuel costs have remained under $4 per gallon, and for seven days, they have been under $3.92 per gallon. Gas prices have dropped over 45 cents per gallon in the last month.
Gas prices have varied considerably throughout 2026, with fuel costs setting both a five-year low and a four-year high in a matter of months. The national average price for a gallon of regular gas dropped to $2.79 on Jan. 12, 2026. This was the lowest national average gas price since 2021. Severe winter weather across the country began causing gas prices to rise slightly in late January, continuing to rise into the $2.90 range in February.
Prices began to soar as the military operation commenced on Feb. 28, ultimately hitting $4.564 per gallon, a record high for 2026 on May 21. This was the most expensive national average price for a gallon of regular gas at any point during either term of President Donald Trump. Gas prices have steadily decreased since then.
Except for last week, when fuel costs increased by the slightest of margins, going from $3.926 per gallon on Tuesday to Wednesday’s price of $3.928 per gallon, gas prices have dropped for five consecutive weeks. Nearly four months after the war began, gas prices dropped below the $4-per-gallon threshold on June 19 for the first time since the end of March.
Trump has been vocal about gas prices during the Iran war, repeatedly suggesting that fuel costs would drop as the war subsided. During a press conference at the White House last week, he accused oil companies of price gouging, arguing that gas prices should be much lower than they are now because oil prices have fallen.
“We should be, in my opinion, at $2.25 right now at the pump, and we’re higher than that,” said Trump. “And we are doing a big investigation on it, yeah. They’re not reducing the prices commensurate with … what’s happening.”
He singled out the country’s largest oil and gas companies for taking advantage of consumer pricing because of Operation Epic Fury during the spring.
“So it’s Exxon Mobil, it’s Chevron, it’s Shell, it’s BP, it’s a lot of them,” Trump said. “The gasoline or the oil prices have come down so much, and we are not seeing anything at the pump by comparison to what it should be.”
Late Wednesday night, Trump boasted about gas prices decreasing in a post to his Truth Social account while also expressing frustration that costs were not decreasing “as fast as they should be.”
“Just as I promised, Oil Prices are plummeting FAST, and Gas Prices at the pump are dropping too, but not as fast as they should be,” Trump said in the post, before promoting a “smart retailer” in the Philadelphia area that would be offering a promotion to discount gas costs for the celebration of America 250.
Despite the massive fluctuations in gas prices this year, one thing that has remained constant is that fuel costs vary throughout the country, specifically by region. The states with the highest gas prices are on the West Coast, whereas the states with the lowest gas prices are located in the Midwest and South.
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Indiana has the lowest statewide average gas price in the country at $3.125 per gallon. This is followed by Texas at $3.344 per gallon. Oklahoma, which was once consistently the state with the lowest gas prices in the nation, fell to third in that category, with an average price of $3.374 per gallon. Tennessee follows with an average price of $3.417 per gallon, and then Arkansas with a statewide average of $3.428 per gallon.
Hawaii has the highest gas prices in the country on Thursday. Regular gas in the Aloha State on Monday averaged $5.485 per gallon. California is next at $5.401 per gallon. Washington state follows this with a statewide average of $5.098 per gallon. Next is Alaska with a statewide average price of $4.79 per gallon, followed by Oregon at $4.628 per gallon.