Across the U.S., drivers are seeing prices climb at the pump again. In March 2026, the national average for regular gas hit $3.718 per gallon, according to AAA.

Around the same time, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) raised its short-term outlook, projecting gas to average $3.58 per gallon in March, about 60 cents higher than earlier forecasts.

For companies with employees driving their own vehicles for work, this usually raises the same question: Is our mileage reimbursement still covering the real cost of driving?

It should be. The programs that work best are built to track real driving costs over time, including changes in fuel prices.

And this isn’t new. We saw the same thing during the COVID fuel cycle, when prices dropped sharply and then spiked within months.

That period made one thing clear: mileage reimbursement programs tied to real market data adapted, while one-size-fits-all approaches struggled to keep up.