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Midwest propane costs: the cheapest propane in America
If a household heats with propane, the Midwest is the place to do it. In EIA's survey week of October 19, 2026, residential propane priced between $1.651 a gallon in North Dakota and $2.647 in Ohio across the region's twelve states — every one of them at or below the $2.689 U.S. average, and the three cheapest state prices in the entire country (North Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska, with South Dakota and Wisconsin close behind) all sat in this region. A 500-gallon fill, the arithmetic this site uses throughout its propane guide, ran from $825.50 in North Dakota to $1,323.50 in Ohio, against fills above $2,400 in the survey's most expensive state, Florida.
| State | Propane per gallon | A 500-gallon fill | Vs U.S. average $2.689 |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Dakota | $1.651 | $825.50 | 39% below |
| Iowa | $1.704 | $852.00 | 37% below |
| Nebraska | $1.783 | $891.50 | 34% below |
| South Dakota | $1.870 | $935.00 | 30% below |
| Wisconsin | $1.940 | $970.00 | 28% below |
| Illinois | $1.943 | $971.50 | 28% below |
| Minnesota | $2.014 | $1,007.00 | 25% below |
| Kansas | $2.074 | $1,037.00 | 23% below |
| Missouri | $2.181 | $1,090.50 | 19% below |
| Michigan | $2.434 | $1,217.00 | 9% below |
| Indiana | $2.559 | $1,279.50 | 5% below |
| Ohio | $2.647 | $1,323.50 | 2% below |
Prices: EIA, Heating Oil and Propane Update, week of October 19, 2026 — residential propane, dollars per gallon, excluding taxes. Fill column is the published price multiplied by 500 gallons; comparison column is arithmetic on the two published prices.
Your winter gallons at your state's surveyed average — and stacked against gas and electricity in the same calculator for the conversion question.
Open the energy cost calculatorWhy propane is cheap here
Propane is a delivered fuel with no tariff and no single regional price, so its geography is a geography of supply and distance. The Midwest sits on top of the continent's propane infrastructure — production, fractionation, storage and the pipeline and rail routes that move the fuel — and its rural delivery networks are dense precisely because propane is the default heating fuel where the gas grid does not reach. EIA's own winter propane briefing tells the same story at district level, with propane prices in the Midwest district (PADD 2) averaging just over $2 a gallon at the start of the 2026–27 season while the East Coast district (PADD 1) started at $3.65. The state table refines it further: the northern plains and upper Mississippi valley states cluster under $2.00, while the region's eastern edge — Michigan, Indiana and Ohio — prices $2.43 to $2.65, a reminder that "Midwest propane" is itself a $1-a-gallon range and a household's benchmark is its own state row, not the regional reputation.
What a Midwest propane winter costs
EIA's Winter Fuels Outlook forecasts Midwest households whose main heating fuel is propane to spend $1,305 from November through March in 2026–27, down 4% on last winter, on a forecast national propane price averaging $2.52 a gallon for the season — a national figure Midwest households, buying at their states' lower survey prices, would expect to beat at equal consumption. The outlook's implied national consumption, about 494 gallons for the average propane-heated home across the season, prices out at roughly $815 in North Dakota and $1,307 in Ohio at the October survey prices (arithmetic on the published figures, shown to size the spread, not as state consumption data, which the outlook does not publish). RECS adds the longer view: propane households nationally averaged 35.4 MMBtu of propane in 2020 — at EIA's heat content of 91,452 Btu per gallon, roughly 387 gallons a year across all uses, heating and otherwise. The gap between that annual figure and a heating season's burn is the shape of propane demand: heavily winter-weighted, bought in tank-sized steps, and therefore unusually sensitive to the week in which a household happens to fill.
Using the state average honestly
Three cautions from our propane guide apply with full force here. The survey price excludes taxes, and it excludes everything a supplier charges around the fuel itself — tank rental on supplier-owned tanks, delivery and hazmat fees, and minimum-delivery rules — none of which EIA publishes and none of which this site estimates. Prices are weekly through the heating season (October to March), so an October average is a season opener, not a winter guarantee; the honest comparison for a January delivery is the January survey week for your state. And the survey's coverage is a map of where propane heating matters: all twelve Midwest states are surveyed, which is itself evidence of the fuel's role here, while twelve states nationally — including the entire Pacific coast — have no published average at all. Within the Midwest, then, a household has something propane users elsewhere often lack: a current, official, state-level number against which to judge every supplier quote it receives.
Sources: EIA — Heating Oil and Propane Update (week of October 19, 2026) · EIA — Winter Fuels Outlook, October 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook (published October 6, 2026) · EIA — RECS 2020, Table CE2.1 · EIA — Winter Propane Market Update (State Heating Oil and Propane Program data through October 5, 2026) · EIA — Energy Explained: British thermal units (conversion factors). Last verified: October 2026 — energy prices move with seasons and markets; confirm the current rate on your own bill.
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