The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources has confirmed the official fuel price adjustments taking effect at midnight on Wednesday 1 April 2026. Petrol 95 increases by R3.06 per litre in Gauteng and R3.02 per litre at the coast. Diesel absorbs the heaviest blow, rising by R7.37 per litre for 50ppm and R7.51 per litre for 500ppm on the Gauteng wholesale price. Illuminating paraffin’s wholesale price climbs by R11.67 per litre inland.
These are significant increases by any measure. But they are meaningfully smaller than the projections Swisher Post reported in our fuel price analysis earlier this month, when mid-cycle Central Energy Fund data was pointing to petrol hikes of up to R5.20 per litre and diesel surges of R8.52 per litre or more. The gap between those projections and the confirmed numbers is not an error in the forecasting. It is the direct result of a government intervention that most South Africans had not seen coming.
What you will pay from 1 April 2026
Converting the official figures from cents to rands, here is what the new pump prices look like:
Petrol 95 in Gauteng rises from R20.30 to R23.36 per litre. At the coast, it moves from R19.47 to R22.49 per litre.
Petrol 93 in Gauteng goes from R20.19 to R23.25 per litre. At the coast, from R19.36 to R22.33 per litre.
Diesel 50ppm in Gauteng moves from a wholesale price of R18.53 to R25.91 per litre wholesale. Diesel 500ppm rises to R26.11 per litre wholesale in Gauteng.
Retail pump prices for diesel will sit slightly above these figures depending on the retailer.
Illuminating paraffin’s Gauteng wholesale price moves to R24.21 per litre. The Single Maximum National Retail Price for illuminating paraffin, which applies countrywide, has been set at R31.47 per litre for the period 1 April to 5 May 2026, compared to R15.87 per litre during the previous period.
That near-doubling of the SMNRP for paraffin is the most severe single adjustment in this announcement and will hit lower-income households who depend on it for cooking and heating hardest.
LPGas increases by R1.08 per kilogram in Gauteng and R1.07 per kilogram at the coast.
Why the increase is smaller than predicted: the R3.00 per litre levy relief
The official press release confirms what Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana signalled in February: the Carbon Fuel Levy increases by 5 cents per litre on petrol and 6 cents per litre on diesel from 1 April, and the Road Accident Fund levy rises by 7 cents per litre to R2.25.
A general fuel levy increase of 9 cents per litre on petrol and 8 cents per litre on diesel was also due to apply.
Under normal circumstances, all of these increases would have stacked on top of a significant Basic Fuel Price under-recovery, producing the headline-grabbing figures that circulated for most of March.
What changed the outcome was a decision by the Minister of Finance, in consultation with the Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, to implement a temporary R3.00 per litre reduction in the general fuel levy on both petrol and diesel specifically in response to the ongoing US-Iran conflict and its effect on global oil prices.
That relief applies from 1 April to 5 May 2026. When you subtract R3.00 from what would otherwise have been the adjustment, the confirmed increases land at R3.06 for petrol rather than the R5 to R6 range that seemed likely at the month’s midpoint.
This is a targeted, time-limited intervention, not a structural reduction. When it expires on 5 May, the levy reverts unless the government extends or replaces it.
South Africans should not read this as a sign that the pressure on fuel prices has eased. It has been cushioned, temporarily, by a political decision.
What drove the underlying under-recovery
The fundamental mathematics behind this adjustment are unchanged from what Swisher Post outlined in our earlier analysis. The Basic Fuel Price under-recovery for the period 27 February to 26 March 2026 came in at R5.82 per litre for petrol 95, R10.13 per litre for diesel 50ppm and R11.63 per litre for illuminating paraffin. Two forces produced those numbers.
The first was international oil prices. The US-Iran conflict pushed Brent Crude well above levels the market had priced in for 2026, driving a movement in international product prices that contributed R5.26 per litre to the petrol under-recovery alone.
The second was rand weakness. The average rand/dollar exchange rate for the pricing period was R16.64, compared to R15.99 during the previous period. That depreciation added a further R0.56 per litre to the petrol under-recovery and R0.77 per litre to diesel.
Every time the rand slips against the dollar, South Africa pays more for every barrel of oil it imports, and the country still imports the majority of its refined fuel following the effective closure of Sapref in Durban in 2022.
What this means beyond the forecourt
The petrol increase will be felt quickly and broadly. Every private motorist, every courier, every ride-hailing driver absorbs R3.06 per litre from Wednesday. For a 60-litre tank, that is R183.60 more at every fill-up compared to the previous month.
The diesel figure is where the ripple effect spreads furthest into the economy. Diesel powers the trucks that move goods from factories and farms to retailers, the generators that keep businesses running during load curtailment, and the minibus taxis that carry millions of South African commuters every day.
A R7.37 per litre increase in the diesel wholesale price does not stay at the pump. It moves through freight costs, food prices and transport fares within weeks, and it lands disproportionately on the households least able to absorb it.
The illuminating paraffin adjustment is the sharpest and the most overlooked. A near-doubling of the Single Maximum National Retail Price, from R15.87 to R31.47 per litre, places an enormous burden on low-income households that have no alternative fuel source for cooking and heating.
This is not an abstraction. For families in informal settlements across Gauteng and the Western Cape who rely on paraffin as their primary energy source, this adjustment represents a significant contraction in household purchasing power overnight.
What happens next
The levy relief expires on 5 May 2026 unless the government extends it. The next official fuel price announcement will cover the period from 1 April to 26 April 2026, with adjustments taking effect on 6 May.
If oil prices remain elevated and the rand does not recover meaningfully, the removal of the R3.00 per litre relief at that point will trigger another substantial increase, potentially larger than what was absorbed in April.
The Slate Levy, which applies when South Africa’s cumulative under-recovery account exceeds R500 million in deficit, remains at zero cents per litre for both petrol and diesel with effect from 1 April.
That provides a small additional buffer. But the cumulative Slate balances in the official data show diesel’s account moving in a direction that warrants watching.
Swisher Post will continue to track the CEF’s daily data through April and will publish an updated forecast ahead of the May announcement.
