FastFloat currently supports over 100 unique Fuel Indexes, providing Diesel rates on a weekly or monthly basis across Europe.
We only support indexes that aren’t behind a paywall / subscription - we believe your suppliers should have visibility into where the fuel data comes from and shouldn’t be expected to pay for this.
These are the key things you should think about when choosing an index -
The countries for the shipments
Where your shipments are occurring primarily on one country, choose an index from that country
Where you have shipments are primarily in distinct domestic markets (e.g. shipments in domestic Germany and shipments in domestic France), create policies for each, with the same policy terms apart from the index and benchmark/reference price
Where your shipments are cross-border, but all from one origin country or to one destination country, we recommend choosing an index from that country
Where your shipments are from multiple origin counties and to multiple destination countries, choose a European / EU wide index
Inclusion of taxes/VAT
How VAT and Fuel Duty are treated in the logistics industry is complex and significant differences exist between markets
Duty
Whilst some markets allow for the reclaiming of a portion of fuel duty (see [here]), it may differ between regions and where companies need to be physically based to be eligible for the claims
VAT
In general, VAT is not ultimately payable by businesses providing logistics service, as it is claimed back
Whilst VAT rates are generally fairly stable, there have been numerous examples of changes over the years
e.g. Poland change in VAT rate on Diesel from 23% to 8% at the start of 2022 would have resulted in 12% decline on the Inc VAT pump price, but would not have ultimately impacted trucks filling up in Poland
We recommend using an index that includes fuel duty, but excludes VAT
Note: choosing the relevant rate is particularly important for Per KM/mile policy types
Update frequency
Outside the official EU Fuel Bulletin index, the majority of other fuel indexes are updated monthly, providing an average of fuel prices over the fuel month
If you plan to update fuel adjustments on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, ensure you choose an index with a weekly update frequency
The currency
We support EURO rates across all fuel indexes (converted at the published EURO rate of the index or the average official Exchange Rate) and the local currency of that fuel index
The Official UK index would there be available in GBP (local currency) and EUR (base currency for FastFloat)
Overall index recommendation
In general, we recommend using the EU index (link) wherever possible - it’s the most commonly used resource, it’s updated weekly, you get the full breakdown of VAT and duty rates and gives you the flexibility to easily add on additional countries in the future whilst keeping the same core policy structure.
It is also the only widely available ‘Europe wide’ index.
How important is the index?
For Benchmark Price and Reference Table policies, the specific index chosen typically makes relatively minor differences to the final adjustments, as Fuel Adjustments are made on the basis of change in the rate rather than the rate itself.
Whilst prices differ between indexes, the movements over time are highly correlated as they’re all ultimately dependent on the price of crude oil and the wholesale price of Diesel
For per km/mile policies, the actual rate also comes into play. Whilst very difficult to perfectly reflect the actual fuel costs (you can never know the fuel card discounts or the exact fuel consumption of a truck), we believe that the ‘Ex VAT’ prices for an index in the country of transportation will provide a sufficiently accurate for a typical policy.
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