Fuel prices have started falling immediately across Australia in the wake of the government’s fuel excise cut, unexpectedly accelerating the delivery of the Albanese government’s cost-of-living relief.

Prices in capital cities paused then plummeted on Wednesday, after the prime minister announced the tax on petrol and diesel would be halved to 26.3 cents a litre.

Unleaded prices fell 16 cents a litre on average across the country on Wednesday, with prices sitting between 243 and 245 cents a litre on average in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, NRMA data showed. Diesel fell from 323.5 cents to 311.1 cents on average across the country.

Adelaide saw the biggest falls, with diesel down 21.3 cents and unleaded down 24.9 cents – almost equal to the entire fuel excise cut.

The excise was only cut on Wednesday and was expected to take days or weeks to flow through to retail prices as petrol stations would have to first sell their stocks of more expensive fuel, bought prior to the cut.

Instead, service stations have immediately dropped prices, on average, even for the stocks bought with the full 52.6 cent per litre charge.

Petrol prices had been rising almost every day in Australia’s capital cities since the start of March, according to Informed Sources data.

Even before the excise announcement, though, the market plateaued, with prices holding steady from the weekend in Sydney and Brisbane.

From Friday to Tuesday, unleaded held steady in Adelaide at about 259 cents a litre and in Darwin at 264 cents, and fell in Hobart, from 260 cents to 257.5. It fell in Perth from 258.3 cents to 251.7 from Thursday to Tuesday.

Fuel shortages in New South Wales also eased after the excise cut, the state premier, Chris Minns, said. There were 30 stations out of fuel on Wednesday, down from 61 on Tuesday, and 207 with no diesel, from 247.

“My strong suspicion is that that’s as a result of consumers waiting for the excise to be cut before they fill up their tank,” he told reporters.

“It’s come at a good time in the run-up to the Easter long weekend, it says to me that there’ll be fuel available and that you shouldn’t cancel your plans.”

Thousands of vehicles had disappeared from Sydney’s roads over the month of March, suggesting motorists had started to cut back on buying petrol.

NSW government data shows Pennant Hills Road traffic in the last full week of March fell 2.6% from late February, before war in Iran sent petrol prices surging, or 5% from the same week in the prior year.

Compared to the previous year, traffic fell by 4.4% on Victoria Road, 2.3% on Parramatta Road and 1.8% on Military Road. On Anzac Parade in Sydney’s east, traffic had been elevated in late February, 5% higher than the year before but by the end of March it was running 1% lower.

The streets around Sydney airport have also emptied out. Traffic counts fell down 9% on Airport Drive and 5% on Qantas Drive from the last week of February to the last full week of March.

Public transport usage has barely changed in NSW, with just under 2.38m average weekday Opal network trips in the last full week of March – the same as in 2025.

Additional reporting by Penry Buckley and Josh Nicholas