What's changing on Friday
Since 2 February 2026, every petrol station in the UK has been legally required to report any change in pump prices to a central government database within 30 minutes. That's the Fuel Finder scheme, set up under the Motor Fuel Price (Open Data) Regulations 2025 and run by appointed aggregator VE3 Global on behalf of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
For the first three months, the Competition and Markets Authority — which has the job of enforcing the scheme — said it would focus on supporting forecourts to comply rather than handing out fines. That grace period ends on Friday 1 May 2026. From that date, the CMA has confirmed it will start prioritising enforcement action against non-compliance, including formal investigations and financial penalties.
In an open letter to forecourt operators dated 2 April 2026, the CMA put the industry on notice. The watchdog has also explicitly linked the move to the recent Middle East-driven price spike, saying it has stepped up monitoring of petrol and diesel prices in light of the conflict.
What Fuel Finder actually requires
The scheme places a mandatory obligation on every petrol filling station selling road fuel in the UK — whether independent or part of a major chain. There are two distinct duties.
Registration data covers the static information about the site: trading name, address, location, opening hours, fuels sold, and forecourt amenities such as car wash, air, water, AdBlue and 24-hour opening. Stations had to register between 18 December 2025 and 2 February 2026, and any changes to that data must be reported within three days.
Price data is the live half of the scheme. Whenever a forecourt changes the price of any grade it sells — E5, E10, diesel, super diesel, B10 or HVO — that change must be reported to the aggregator within 30 minutes. Retailers can do this through one of four channels: an automated API tied to their till system, a secure web portal, an SMS service, or an interactive voice response phone line.
There's no official Fuel Finder app: Despite the scheme's name, the government has not built a consumer-facing app or website to display the data. Instead, the data is open and feeds into third-party comparison services, mapping apps, and in-car navigation systems — including PetrolPrices.co.uk, which pulls directly from the Fuel Finder feed every 15 minutes for over 7,400 stations.
Why the scheme exists in the first place
The CMA recommended Fuel Finder back in July 2023, after a market study concluded that competition between UK fuel retailers was "not working as well as it should be" and that retail margins had risen well above their long-run average. In its language, fuel prices "rise like a rocket but fall like a feather" — jumping quickly when wholesale costs rise, but drifting down only slowly when wholesale costs fall.
That conclusion has only sharpened since. In its first annual road fuel monitoring report, published in December 2025, the CMA found that fuel margins remained "persistently high" compared to the historic average from 2015 to 2019, and that the increase could not be explained by higher operating costs. In other words, drivers were paying more than they would in a properly competitive market — and the regulator concluded that better price transparency, on the model of supermarkets and energy comparison, was part of the fix.
The government's own estimate is that Fuel Finder could save the average car-owning household around £40 a year, with industry analysis suggesting potential savings of between 1p and 6p per litre for drivers who actively shop around. Those numbers depend entirely on drivers checking prices before filling up — the data on its own does nothing.
The compliance gap that's already there
Three months in, the picture is mixed. At launch on 2 February, around 6,200 of the UK's roughly 8,300 forecourts had registered — meaning a quarter were not yet on the system. Industry trade press also reported teething problems with the registration process itself, which the CMA acknowledged when it set the longer compliance window.
More awkwardly, there have been documented cases of forecourts reporting one price to the Fuel Finder feed while charging a different price at the actual pump. Forecourt operator Oliver Blake, of Oasis Services in East Yorkshire, recently flagged what he described as a "Wild West" situation: compliant retailers being undercut on comparison apps by sites whose reported prices don't match what's actually on the totem pole. From 1 May, that kind of mismatch is squarely the sort of conduct the CMA has indicated it will prioritise.
What to do if your pump price doesn't match the app: If you arrive at a forecourt and find the price on the pump is materially higher than what was reported on a comparison site, that's exactly the kind of breach the regime is designed to address. You can report a discrepancy to the CMA at gov.uk/cma. Take a photo of the forecourt price board with a timestamp where possible.
What enforcement actually looks like
The Regulations give the CMA a graduated set of tools. Most issues are handled first by the aggregator, VE3 Global, which works with the retailer to resolve them. If a station refuses to comply or the breach is serious, the matter is referred up to the CMA, which can:
- Issue an information notice requiring the operator to provide documents and evidence under formal legal compulsion.
- Issue a compliance notice requiring specific corrective action, such as immediate registration or accurate price reporting, within a defined timeframe.
- Impose financial penalties for breaches. The Regulations set out maximum penalty amounts, with the actual fine adjusted for factors including how long the breach lasted, whether the operator tried to conceal it, and the size of the business.
Penalty examples published in the CMA's enforcement guidance make clear that even small operators are in scope — though the CMA has signalled its initial focus will be on price reporting rather than amenities data, and on cases where consumer harm is clearest.
A timeline of how Fuel Finder got here
- July 2023: CMA's market study concludes competition between UK fuel retailers is weak and recommends a mandatory open-data scheme.
- 2025: Motor Fuel Price (Open Data) Regulations 2025 made law; VE3 Global appointed as aggregator.
- 18 December 2025: Forecourt registration window opens.
- 2 February 2026: Scheme goes live. Mandatory 30-minute price reporting begins. ~6,200 of ~8,300 sites registered at launch.
- March 2026: Following the Middle East oil spike, the Chancellor and Energy Secretary publicly ask the CMA to crack down on rip-offs in road fuel pricing.
- 2 April 2026: CMA publishes open letter warning forecourts that enforcement will begin from 1 May.
- 1 May 2026: Three-month grace period ends. CMA begins prioritising enforcement action.
What this means for drivers
The honest answer is: not very much will change overnight. Fuel Finder doesn't set prices, doesn't cap them, and doesn't stop a station charging whatever it likes. What it does is force every forecourt onto the same level playing field of price transparency — so that when the cheapest station in your area drops 4p, you can see it within minutes rather than driving past unaware.
Three things are worth knowing as the regime tightens:
- The data has been reliable since February. By far the majority of UK forecourts — including all the major brands and supermarkets — have been reporting accurately for months. The scheme isn't starting on Friday; only the consequences of not playing along are.
- Comparison apps already use this feed. The Fuel Finder data flows into PetrolPrices.co.uk and other major comparison sites. You don't need to do anything different to access it.
- Mismatches still happen, but should reduce. If you've ever pulled into a station and found the pump price higher than what an app showed, that's the gap the regulator is now targeting. Reporting it helps.
The scheme is the floor, not the ceiling: Fuel Finder guarantees you can see the prices — it's still up to you to use them. With UK petrol still around 25p above pre-crisis levels and diesel nearly 50p above, the gap between the cheapest and most expensive station in the same town is bigger than usual. Checking before you fill up is where the actual saving comes from.
What happens next
From 1 May, expect the first enforcement actions to surface in the trade press over the coming weeks — almost certainly starting with the most clear-cut cases of unregistered forecourts and persistent mismatches between reported and pump prices. The CMA has powers to fine, but its public messaging suggests it will use those powers proportionately, with an emphasis on bringing operators into compliance rather than punishing them out of business.
The bigger test is whether Fuel Finder actually delivers the price competition the CMA hoped for. The government's first annual report under the scheme is expected later in 2026 and will, for the first time, include data drawn directly from the Fuel Finder feed itself. That's when the regulator and ministers will know whether the £40-a-year saving is real, optimistic, or something to revisit.
For now, the practical takeaway is simple. The infrastructure to find cheaper fuel exists, it's mandated by law, and from this Friday it has a regulator with the power to enforce it.