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.

Prices are refreshed every hour by our automated data collection service. The exact timing depends on when the external API updates its data, but in most cases you'll see prices that are within an hour of what's actually at the pump. Each station card shows a "last updated" timestamp so you always know how fresh the data is.

We use a third-party Canadian fuel price API that aggregates data from a mix of commercial partnerships and community reports. The same type of data powers many popular gas price apps in Canada. We do not manually collect prices — our server polls the API automatically on a schedule.

Prices are generally within 1–3 cents per litre of actual pump prices. However, because data flows through a third-party API, there can be a lag of up to a few hours after a station changes its price. We always show the last-updated time for each station. 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. Alongside regular (87 octane) gasoline, we publish dedicated ranked pages for the cheapest diesel and the cheapest premium (91+ octane) in Vancouver, both refreshed hourly. Station detail pages show the full price grid — regular, mid-grade, premium and diesel — wherever our data provider has a current number.

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.