- Memorial Day is the one holiday with a real, consistent pre-holiday price increase. Gas prices were higher than the surrounding weeks in 26 of the last 35 years (74%), a median increase of 0.89%.
- July 4th shows no such pattern. Despite the popular belief, prices were higher in only 15 of 35 years (43%), worse than a coin flip, with a median change of −0.24%.
- Labor Day and Thanksgiving fall in between: both lean slightly positive, but far less consistently than Memorial Day, and Labor Day's average is skewed by a few years with real hurricane-driven refinery disruptions.
- The analysis uses 35+ years of EIA weekly retail gasoline price data (1990–2025) and isolates each holiday from the broader spring-to-summer seasonal climb already documented in our seasonal price patterns article.
These are historical averages; your actual fuel cost depends on your specific vehicle and location.
Calculate Your Exact Cost01 The Popular Belief
Every year, around Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving, the same claim resurfaces: gas stations raise prices right before the holiday, anticipating a surge in road trips. It's a durable piece of conventional wisdom, but it's a testable one. The EIA has published weekly national retail gasoline prices since 1990, giving us 35+ years of independent observations of what actually happens to prices in the days surrounding each of the four major U.S. driving holidays.
02 How We Tested It
For each year and each holiday, we identified the EIA weekly price reading closest to the holiday's calendar date (EIA collects retail prices on Mondays, so the reading typically falls within a few days of the holiday itself). We then compared that reading to a local baseline: the average of the 10 surrounding weekly prices (5 weeks before and 5 weeks after), excluding the holiday week itself.
Calculated from EIA, Weekly U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices, 1990–2026 (Data 3: "Regular All Areas All Formulations")This local-baseline approach matters: gas prices already follow a well-documented seasonal climb from winter into summer (covered in our seasonal price patterns article), so simply comparing a holiday week's price to January's price would confuse that broader trend with a holiday-specific effect. By comparing each holiday week only to the weeks immediately around it, the broader seasonal trend is netted out, isolating whatever is specific to the holiday itself.
We checked that the results aren't an artifact of the 5-week window choice by re-running the analysis with windows from ±3 to ±8 weeks. The ranking and general pattern held at every window width tested.
Robustness check: same method applied with baseline windows of ±3, ±4, ±5, ±6, and ±8 weeks around each holiday| Holiday | Years Analyzed | Median vs. Baseline | Years Priced Higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| Memorial Day | 35 (1991–2025) | +0.89% | 26 / 35 (74%) |
| Labor Day | 36 (1990–2025) | +0.16% | 19 / 36 (53%) |
| Thanksgiving | 36 (1990–2025) | +0.51% | 23 / 36 (64%) |
| July 4th | 35 (1991–2025) | −0.24% | 15 / 35 (43%) |
03 Memorial Day: A Real (Modest) Pattern
Of the four holidays, Memorial Day is the only one with a pre-holiday price pattern that looks like more than noise. Over the 35 years from 1991 to 2025, the price nearest Memorial Day was higher than its local baseline in 26 years, 74% of the time, with a median increase of 0.89% and a mean increase of the same size. That consistency held up across every baseline window we tested, from 63% of years at a ±3-week window to 77% at a ±8-week window.
Calculated from EIA weekly retail gasoline prices, 1991–2025; robustness checked across ±3 to ±8-week baseline windowsThe largest increases came in 2004 (+5.45%), 2007 (+5.57%), and 2001 (+4.62%); the largest decreases came in 2005 (−3.78%) and 2010 (−2.41%). Even accounting for those outlier years in both directions, the underlying tendency toward a modest pre-Memorial-Day increase is the most consistent of any holiday tested.
Full year-by-year figures calculated from EIA weekly retail gasoline prices, 1991–202504 July 4th: The Myth
July 4th is the holiday most associated in popular belief with pre-holiday price spikes, and the data shows the opposite. Over the same 35 years, the price nearest July 4th was higher than its local baseline in only 15 years, 43% of the time, with a median change of −0.24% and a mean change of −0.45%. A coin flip would produce a "higher" result roughly 50% of the time; July 4th came in below that in every baseline window we tested (40–46% across ±3 to ±8 weeks).
Calculated from EIA weekly retail gasoline prices, 1991–2025; robustness checked across ±3 to ±8-week baseline windows05 Labor Day and Thanksgiving: Mixed Signals
Labor Day's raw average looks like a real effect (a mean increase of 1.05%), but that average is heavily skewed by a handful of outlier years tied to real, identifiable supply disruptions rather than the holiday itself. Prices near Labor Day 2005 jumped 14.7% above baseline (Hurricanes Katrina and Rita shut down Gulf Coast refineries days before the holiday); 2003 and 2017 each saw increases above 7%. Strip out the effect of those outliers by looking at the median instead of the mean, and the typical Labor Day effect shrinks to just +0.16%, with prices higher in only 19 of 36 years (53%), essentially a coin flip.
Calculated from EIA weekly retail gasoline prices, 1990–2025; hurricane timing per NOAA historical storm records referenced in general knowledge, not separately re-verified against a government dataset for this articleLabor Day's vulnerability to these outliers isn't a coincidence: early September sits near the peak of Atlantic hurricane season, when Gulf Coast refinery disruptions are most likely. That's a real seasonal risk factor, but it's a different mechanism than "prices rise because the holiday is coming," and it doesn't show up reliably enough to call Labor Day itself a pre-holiday price-spike holiday.
Thanksgiving shows the weakest and most mixed pattern of the four: a median increase of 0.51% with prices higher in 23 of 36 years (64%), but a mean of essentially zero (+0.02%), pulled down by sharp declines in 2008 (−8.6%, amid the financial crisis) and 2005 (−5.8%). The 64%-of-years figure is directionally positive but the effect size is small enough that it's hard to distinguish from ordinary week-to-week price noise.
Calculated from EIA weekly retail gasoline prices, 1990–2025Want to see exactly how gas prices affect your own annual cost?
Use the Calculator06 Why Memorial Day Is Different
The most likely explanation for Memorial Day's real pattern isn't holiday-specific pricing at all. It's calendar timing. As documented in our seasonal price patterns analysis, gas prices typically climb from a January low to a May–June peak, driven by rising summer driving demand, spring refinery maintenance, and the EPA-mandated switch to summer-blend gasoline. Memorial Day, in late May, falls squarely inside the steepest part of that well-documented spring climb. July 4th, by contrast, typically falls closer to the seasonal peak or just past it, when prices have largely leveled off or begun to ease. Labor Day and Thanksgiving fall during the seasonal decline into fall and winter.
Cross-reference to seasonal pattern documented in gas-price-by-month-seasonal-patterns.html, based on EIA monthly price deviation dataIn other words, Memorial Day's "pre-holiday bump" is best understood as a byproduct of where it lands on the existing seasonal calendar, not evidence that retailers raise prices in anticipation of holiday travel demand specifically.
07 Data Sources
- U.S. Energy Information Administration: Weekly U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices, 1990–2026. eia.gov