Fuel Quality

Fuels used for road transport in the EU have to meet strict quality requirements to protect human health and the environment and make sure that vehicles can safely travel from one country to another.

Common fuel quality rules help:

• reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions
• establish a single fuel market and ensure that vehicles can operate everywhere in the EU on the basis of compatible fuels.

The Fuel Quality Directive applies to:

• petrol, diesel and biofuels used in road transport
• gasoil used in non-road-mobile machinery.

To minimise the negative effects on health and environment from the use of petrol and diesel fuels in road transport, the Fuel Quality Directive establishes minimum quality requirements, including:  

• sulphur oxide
• metallic emissions (lead, manganese)
• particulate matter
• hydrocarbons (olefins, benzene, aromatics)
• polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH)
• vapour pressure of summer petrol

The fuel specifications also have the objective to ensure that fuels are compatible with engines and the after-treatment of exhaust gases, such as catalytic filters. For this reason, there is a limit in blending certain types of biofuels, which are not compatible with all engines. In diesel, the content of biodiesel, or FAME (Fatty Acid Methyl Ester) is generally limited to 7%. In petrol, the content of ethanol is limited to 10%.

The Fuel Quality Directive required a reduction of the greenhouse gas intensity of transport fuels by at least 6% by 2020. It has been amended by the revised Renewable Energy Directive. This amendment removes the greenhouse gas intensity reduction target from the Fuel Quality Directive and introduces an ambitious 2030 target for transport fuels and energy carriers in the revised Renewable Energy Directive.

Member States must ensure that data are still collected and reported (in accordance with Article 7a of the Fuel Quality Directive) for the years 2022 and 2023.

Member States report the volume and quality of petrol and diesel fuels sold in their territories. Specifically, they must sample fuels each year and analyse them to ensure they are consistent with the requirements of the Fuel Quality Directive. This reporting stream supports our overall aim to minimise negative effects on the environment and human health, and to ensure compatibility with vehicle engines.

Based on the collected data, each year in October, the European Commission publishes its report on fuel quality. It provides an overview of the type and volume of compliant fuels placed on the market, as well as the decarbonisation achievements by Member States (the latest report can be found under Fuel Quality Monitoring in the Documents section below).

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