The Competition and Markets Authority has begun issuing ‘compliance notices’ to forecourt operators that are in breach of Fuel Finder regulations, demanding they adhere to the scheme’s rules.
Since February 2, 2026 retailers have had to be registered with Fuel Finder and report any petrol and diesel price changes to the scheme within 30 minutes of them being applied. Firms failing to meet these requirements risk fines of up to 30% of their annual turnover.
While the CMA incorrectly names this date as February 1 in its latest progress report, the watchdog, which is the regulatory enforcer for the scheme, has until recently focussed on “supporting” unregistered operators to register, and to that end has sent out 1,166 letters telling fuel retailers they must sign up and share prices.
The CMA is now stepping up its enforcement, however, and the body has issued ‘compliance notices’ to 53 forecourts, formally requiring retailers to sign up and share prices or risk financial penalties.
If the compliance notice is not followed the CMA will issue a “notice of intent” containing a draft financial penalty and an invitation for the operator to make “representations”, explaining their breach. After reviewing these representations the CMA will decide whether or not to go ahead with the fine.
The watchdog says its experience is that “registration issues are generally resolved quickly through informal engagement with retailers” but adds that it is working with Trading Standards agencies to ensure compliance and will take “formal enforcement action where appropriate”.
The latest Fuel Finder dataset shows 8,067 of the UK’s 8,300 or so forecourts, roughly 97%, are signed up to the scheme, though of those 8,067 some 200 sites are not sharing prices for unleaded, 100 are not sharing diesel prices, and 24 are sharing neither.
Indications are that the 250 or so fuel retailers that have yet to sign up to Fuel Finder are smaller sites, as the CMA says petrol stations that are registered account for 99% of the fuel volume sold in the UK.
