Asheville gas prices ease slightly, still well above normal

Asheville drivers are getting a little relief at the pump, but the savings are still too small to restore a normal budget. At GasBuddy’s Asheville metro snapshot of $4.099 a gallon, filling a 15-gallon tank cost about $61.49, nearly $20 more than the same fill would have cost a year earlier, and about $4.95 more than the North Carolina average.

The gap has been persistent. GasBuddy said Asheville regular gas was up 23.3 cents from the previous week, 22.0 cents from the prior month and 132.8 cents from a year earlier in its May 3 snapshot. The area’s highest recorded average was $4.685 on June 16, 2022, and the highest average so far this year was $4.093 on May 3, showing how close local prices have stayed to the upper end of recent history.

That matters across Buncombe County and the broader Asheville metro area, which includes Haywood, Henderson and Madison counties. GasBuddy ranked Asheville 168th least expensive among 456 metro areas in that snapshot, but the city was still running above North Carolina’s average and well above the levels many households remember from a year ago. A May 11 check put Asheville metro gas at $4.13, still 22 cents above the prior month and $1.36 above the same point in 2025.

The broader market has also been moving, but not enough to erase the pressure on local drivers. AAA said on June 4 that the national average for regular gasoline had fallen 18 cents in a week to $4.24, the second straight weekly decline. By June 7, AAA put North Carolina’s average at $3.769, down from $3.968 a week earlier and $4.219 a month earlier, while the national average stood at $4.174.

For commuters, rideshare drivers, delivery workers, small businesses that depend on transportation and tourists heading into the mountains, the math is straightforward: fuel costs are easing, but Asheville is still paying a premium compared with recent norms. With early summer travel building and uncertainty over the Strait of Hormuz still hanging over the market, the region’s gas prices remain stuck in a costly middle ground, not cheap enough to feel normal and not high enough to ignore.