Diesel excise duty, the extension runs seven days: Decree 157 in force from September 11

The cut on diesel has a new deadline: September 17. Decree-law 10 September 2026 no. 157, published in the Official Gazette no. 210 of September 10, came into force on September 11 and in Article 1 resets the excise duty on diesel fuel at 532.90 euros per thousand litres for the period between September 11 and September 17, 2026. The same rate applies to hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) and biodiesel. We wrote about this yesterday, when the extension had been announced but without a date.

The measure emerged from a Council of Ministers convened urgently: meeting number 187 opened at Palazzo Chigi on September 10 at 5:39 pm and closed at 5:51 pm. Twelve minutes, the time needed to ratify a text already drafted.

On the financial coverage, the reconstructions do not agree. Ansa indicates 85 million euros; other journalistic reconstructions report different amounts, 86 and 102 million. The discrepancy concerns one week of discount and remains to be clarified: the figure is not currently aligned across the available sources, and we state this rather than choose the most convenient number.

The least predictable part of the decree does not concern excise duties. The text contains measures to speed up procedures on prospecting, exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons, with deadlines assigned to the Regions to express their agreement. This is a measure of a different nature from the one on pump prices: it acts on the administrative timing of authorizations, not on the cost of a full tank in the current week. The fact that the two matters travel in the same legislative vehicle signals the government’s intention to link the price emergency to a response on domestic supply. Giorgia Meloni indicated as the goal “increasing national production of oil and gas”.

What remains is the mechanism that has been running for weeks: the discount is renewed for increasingly shorter intervals, using different instruments — decree-law, inter-ministerial decree — and each time close to the deadline. This time the coverage period is seven days, and the prime minister announced new measures on fuel for the following week: on September 17, then, the issue will return to the table before evening.

Three elements remain undetermined. The first is precisely the coverage figure. The second is the form of the upcoming measures: Meloni’s announcement indicates that they will happen, not what they will be nor whether they will maintain the across-the-board discount or replace it with different measures. The third is the effect of the hydrocarbon provisions, which depends on the deadlines set for the Regions and on the actual time it takes for procedures to be completed.

For those driving a diesel vehicle, the operational fact is one: until September 17 the excise duty remains at 532.90 euros per thousand litres. From the 18th, absent a new act published in the Gazette, the ordinary rate returns.

Sources: ANSA (news agency); governo.it (Palazzo Chigi press release); Certifico (text of the decree in the Official Gazette); Eutekne.info (regulatory analysis); Teleborsa (economic news agency).