Georgians Driving Home for Thanksgiving Get a 33-Cent Break, but It’s Set to Expire Days After

Georgia’s average for regular gas was $3.77 a gallon in mid-October, 92 cents more than a year earlier.

With Thanksgiving on Nov. 26, that gap shows up on every fill-up for the drive home.

Here’s why driving home for Thanksgiving will cost Georgians more at the pump than last year.

The Forecast Behind the Gap

Gas prices rose in September because crude oil cost more and crack spreads widened, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in its outlook released Oct. 6.

A crack spread is the gap between the price of crude oil and the wholesale price of the fuel refined from it.

Retail gasoline averaged $4.35 a gallon across the country that month.

The outlook expects October to come in about the same.

After that, it expects prices to ease slowly along with crude oil.

EIA scheduled its next outlook for Nov. 10.

The catch?

Lower wholesale prices won’t show up at the pump right away, since retail margins were squeezed by this year’s wholesale surge.

The outlook expects those margins to rise back above their five-year average in 2027.

Low U.S. inventories should also keep the gasoline crack spread above seasonal averages into early 2027.

If you’re budgeting for the drive home, you’re budgeting against a price that falls slowly.

Retail gasoline averaged $3.31 a gallon in 2024 and $3.10 in 2025.

The 2026 projection is $3.91.

The 2027 projection is $3.56, so even then you’d pay more than you did in 2025.

Pump Prices Then and Now

In EIA’s weekly survey of the Lower Atlantic region, gas prices averaged $2.90 a gallon on Nov. 24, 2025, three days before Thanksgiving.

That region covers Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

Last November, EIA’s Lower Atlantic price stayed between $2.78 and $2.90 in all four weekly readings.

The same weekly series read $3.93 on Oct. 12, 2026.

That’s $1.03 more, or 36% higher.

AAA’s Georgia average tells the same story.

Regular was $3.77 on Oct. 15, down from $4.04 a month earlier.

On that day last year it was $2.85, so the price is 32% higher.

By Nov. 24, 2025, the Monday before Thanksgiving, it had edged up to $2.87.

Your holiday trip last year likely started under $3 a gallon.

If prices held at their Oct. 15 level, you’d pay more than that this year.

The Gas Tax Pause

Gas prices in Georgia got a discount on Sept. 29, when Gov. Brian Kemp suspended the state's motor fuel tax.

The order was set to run 30 days.

Kemp issued it under a state of emergency.

The Georgia Department of Revenue says the suspension began at 12:01 a.m. that day and was set to end at 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 29.

It cut the tax by 33.3 cents a gallon on regular gasoline.

The same order cut diesel by 37.3 cents.

It was the third suspension this year, after one in March and an extension in May.

Lawmakers approved that May extension after the fact, in a June special session.

AAA's $3.77 reading on Oct. 15 came with that discount in place.

As of mid-October, the pause was set to end Oct. 29, which falls before Thanksgiving, so what you pay on the trip depends partly on whether Kemp extended the order.

If the tax returns, the 33.3 cents comes back on top of the pump price.

This Fall's Price Swings

EIA's weekly readings show gas prices in the Lower Atlantic region rising for three straight weeks in September.

They went from $3.86 on Sept. 7 to $4.04, then $4.16, then about $4.20 on Sept. 28.

Kemp's tax pause began on Sept. 29, and EIA's next two readings fell to $3.96 on Oct. 5 and $3.93 on Oct. 12.

Even after the drop, the Oct. 12 reading sat $1.03 above the Nov. 24, 2025 reading, and a forecast can't promise where prices will sit on the day you fill up.

What the Gap Costs on a Drive

Most Thanksgiving travelers drive, so gas prices shape what the trip costs.

Last year, AAA projected that at least 73 million of the 81.8 million people traveling 50 miles or more from home would go by car.

Its holiday period ran from Tuesday, Nov. 25 to Monday, Dec. 1.

Take a 250-mile drive.

In a car that gets 25 miles per gallon, it burns 10 gallons.

At the Oct. 15 Georgia average, those gallons cost $37.73.

At the Oct. 15 average from a year earlier, $2.85, they would have cost $28.52.

You'd pay $9.21 more each way, and about $18.40 more on the round trip.

A 100-mile trip burns four gallons, so it adds $3.68.

A fill-up that cost $50 at the Oct. 15 average a year earlier costs about $66 at this year's.

Swap in your mileage and your car's miles per gallon, and you have your number.

Where Prices Would Have to Go

Georgia's gas prices would have to fall about 90 cents in six weeks to match last year's Nov. 24 price.

That works out to about 15 cents a week.

AAA's Georgia average fell 27 cents over the month before Oct. 15.

The pause cut 33.3 cents.