A household that fills its tank with heating oil this winter is on course to spend about $2,115 on the fuel, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s forecast for November 2026 through March 2027. That is a 21% jump from last winter, the largest increase of the four main heating fuels. Homes that burn natural gas are forecast to spend less.
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The agency’s numbers split the country by what is in the basement. Natural gas bills are projected to fall 9% on average and propane bills 3%, while electricity bills rise 4%. Oil heats only about 3% of American homes, most of them in the Northeast, so the steepest increase lands on a small group concentrated in one region.
Four fuels, four different winters
EIA’s Oct. 7 Today in Energy note, describing a mixed outlook for winter energy spending, reports that natural gas and propane prices are lower, which should reduce spending for households using them, roughly half of U.S. homes. Electricity and heating oil prices are higher. In the underlying Winter Fuels Outlook, the average natural gas household spends $640 (down 9%), the average electric household $1,196 (up 4%), and the average propane household $1,246 (down 3%).
Heating oil sits at the top: $2,115 per household, up 21%, against $640 for natural gas, the cheapest fuel to burn. The oil household pays more than three times the gas household’s bill, a gap that EIA’s per-fuel table makes plain even before the 21% increase is counted. Because oil homes also burn less of it, down 9% to 402 gallons, the spending increase is smaller than the price increase.
The price per gallon is forecast at $5.26, up 34% from last winter, and EIA attributes the rise to higher global crude and distillate prices, reduced global refining and low U.S. stocks. Multiplying the two reproduces the $2,115 bill: 402 gallons at $5.26.
Distillate supply: refinery cuts, exports and thin stocks
Heating oil is a distillate, the same family as diesel, and EIA’s note says global distillate production has fallen because of reduced refining activity. The loss pushed up international prices, which raised the cost of U.S. imports and increased demand for American exports. U.S. distillate exports rose 20% in the first seven months of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, with much of the increase going to Europe, and EIA expects domestic inventories to be about 11% below the five-year average in the fourth quarter. A separate EIA piece on global distillate production covers that supply side in more detail.
Inventories of that size leave less slack heading into the coldest months. EIA’s forecast ties the 34% price rise to the combination of tighter global supply, strong export demand and the low U.S. stock position, rather than to any single cause.
Weather offsets and the Northeast picture
Weather softens the blow without erasing it. EIA expects national average temperatures to be similar to last winter, with the Northeast warmer than a relatively cold 2025-26 and the West much colder than an unusually warm one. Warmer forecast Northeast temperatures partly offset the heating oil price increase, which is why the spending rise of 21% trails the price rise of 34%.
Northeast households on other fuels come out ahead in the forecast. Natural gas spending there is projected at $879, down 14%, and propane at $1,687, down 15%, while electricity falls 3% to $1,637. The Winter Fuels Outlook gives a U.S. average for oil only, with no separate Northeast heating-oil figure, so the regional result for oil homes is not broken out.
Last winter’s contrast and the limits of a forecast
A year earlier the picture ran the other way. EIA’s Oct. 15, 2025 note, the agency’s winter expenditure forecast for 2025-26, projected that propane and heating oil homes would pay less than the winter before, while electricity homes would pay more. That outlook also carried a warning that weather is the key source of uncertainty, and EIA said national outcomes had fallen within its forecast bounds in 9 of the past 10 winters.
The other fuels follow the same pattern of small price moves and flat consumption. Electricity averages 18.23 cents per kilowatt-hour, up 3%, with use of 6,562 kilowatt-hours, up 1%, which produces the 4% bill rise for the more than 40% of homes that heat that way. Propane averages $2.52 a gallon, down 2%, at 494 gallons per household, down 1%. Natural gas averages $13.44 per thousand cubic feet, down 9%, at 48 thousand cubic feet with no change in use. Oil is the only fuel where price and consumption both moved sharply.
All the 2026-27 figures are nominal, with assumed inflation of about 2%. They date from Oct. 7, and EIA updates its outlook with each monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook, so later releases may revise the oil estimate. What no source here settles is the bill for a typical Northeast oil customer, because EIA published the oil forecast as a national average only.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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