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The most striking data point in our research of gift card industry statistics 2026 is that nearly 75% of Gen Z and Millennial shoppers used AI tools for holiday shopping last year, compared to just 31% of Gen X and Baby Boomers, a gap that's widening every quarter. That kind of generational split, alongside a US gift card market on track to top $246 billion this year, is exactly the sort of figure that gets cited, misquoted, and cited again without anyone checking the source. This guide is built for the people who need to get it right the first time: researchers, journalists, and HR or marketing professionals looking for defensible numbers rather than rounded-off talking points. Every statistic below is sourced directly to its original report, survey, or press release, with the original data clearly distinguished from any interpretation layered on top of it.

Among available market-sizing sources, ResearchAndMarkets' Q1 2026 Databook offers the clearest disclosed methodology, making it the most reliable figure to anchor on. The report projects the US gift card market will grow 7.1% annually to reach $246.91 billion in 2026, building on a 7.5% compound annual growth rate from 2021 to 2025. Looking further out, the market is forecast to reach $320.81 billion by 2030.

Worth noting: market-sizing figures across different research firms can vary considerably, largely due to differences in scope as some estimates include closed-loop cards only, others fold in open-loop and prepaid categories, and definitions of "gift card market" aren't fully standardized industry-wide. The figures above reflect this one source's stated methodology rather than an industry consensus number.

The choice between physical and digital gift cards isn't as clear-cut as one format overtaking the other as the data shows consumers using both, often for different reasons.

According to TSG and Bank of America's 2026 study, 27% of consumers purchased both digital and physical gift cards in 2025, while 36% bought physical-only and 13% bought digital-only, evidence that most shoppers aren't loyal to a single format, but rather choose based on the occasion.

That occasion-driven behavior shows up clearly around the holidays. Separate research from BHN and PaymentsJournal found that nearly 75% of respondents purchased a digital gift card on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and 80% turned to digital for last-minute gift occasions in general. Rather than conflicting with the TSG/BofA findings, this points to a timing effect: digital's share climbs sharply when the purchase window shrinks, since it's the only format that can be delivered instantly.

Spending patterns tell a similar story. Physical card load values rose an average of $11 from 2024 to 2025, while digital load values climbed $15 over the same period, a gap researchers attribute to consumers reinvesting the money they'd otherwise spend on shipping directly into the card's value.

Taken together, the picture that emerges is one of complementary formats rather than competing ones: digital isn't replacing physical, but timing and distance from the gift-giving occasion are what determine which one a buyer reaches for.

Category-level data is where the gift card industry's research gets thinner, and much of what circulates as "top gift card" rankings amounts to speculation dressed up as insight. Two sources, however, offer genuinely usable data.

NRF's holiday survey provides the cleanest top-line figure in the category with gift cards ranking as the most-wanted gift overall. That gap over the next-closest category underscores just how dominant gift cards are as a gifting preference, independent of any single brand or retailer.

For a view into which categories perform best after purchase, Giftogram's 2026 redemption data offers a useful, if narrower data point. Looking specifically at employee redemption behavior, Giftogram found that coffee and treats, food delivery, everyday retail, home and improvement, beauty and wellness, active lifestyle, and universal prepaid cards were the categories employees redeemed most often. It's worth noting this reflects Giftogram's own platform data on workplace gifting redemptions, not an industry-wide benchmark, but it's a helpful signal for how recipients actually use cards once they're in hand.

Gift cards continue to serve as a low-risk way for consumers to explore brands they might not otherwise try. 55% of consumers say they'd try a new business because of a gift card, up from 49% just two years ago, a meaningful jump that signals growing confidence in gift cards as a discovery tool rather than just a fallback gift.

The value consumers are receiving is also climbing. Average total gift card value received reached $236 in 2025, up from $209 in 2024. Notably, the average number of cards received per person held steady at three, meaning the growth is coming from higher card values, not from people receiving more cards.

Promotions played a significant role in how consumers bought during the season, with 90% leveraging some type of promotion during the 2025 holiday period. More broadly, gift cards themselves appear to be shifting in purpose, moving from a convenience purchase toward a deliberate budgeting and planning tool. Economic concerns pushed more shoppers toward buying fewer gifts overall, and toward group gift exchanges like Secret Santa and White Elephant as a way to stretch shared budgets further.

Overspending, meanwhile, appears to be a consistent and intentional pattern rather than an impulsive one. BHN and PaymentsJournal's holiday report found that recipients overspend by an average of $108 beyond the card's value, characterizing this as planned behavior. Capital One Shopping's compiled research cites this same $108 figure, very likely drawing on the same underlying data, so it's presented here as a single data point rather than two independent findings.

Two additional figures are worth noting separately, since they measure different things. Capital One Shopping also reports that the median value of a gift card given to someone else is $47.91, compared to $51.93 for cards people buy for themselves. And in a distinct measurement, BHN's January 2026 data found an average upspend of $73. This figure reflects general 2026 purchasing behavior, not the 2025 holiday season specifically, so it shouldn't be conflated with the $108 holiday overspend figure above.

Artificial intelligence is emerging as a genuine generational split in how consumers approach gift shopping. Nearly 75% of younger consumers (Gen Z and Millennials) used AI tools for holiday shopping in 2025, compared to just 31% of older consumers (Gen X and Baby Boomers). The gap is widening, too: younger-generation AI usage grew 8% year over year, versus only 1% growth among older generations.

Where consumers are actually applying AI matters as much as who's using it. The most common use cases include:

• Finding promotions and the best prices
• Comparing products
• Generating creative gift ideas
• Solving the perennial challenge of finding something new for a recipient who's already received several gifts over the years

This pattern isn't isolated to a single study. BHN's separate January 2026 research independently found consumers turning to AI tools specifically for gift shopping, again most commonly to compare products or brands and to find the best prices, a second, distinct data set that reinforces rather than merely repeats the holiday findings above.

Zooming out to broader e-commerce behavior, AI's role in shopping is already substantial: 73% of consumers use AI somewhere in their shopping journey, though only 13% have gone on to complete a purchase following an AI referral, a reminder that AI influence and AI-driven conversion are still two very different things.

That gap is worth considering in the context of gift cards specifically. Digital gift cards may be uniquely suited to AI-assisted shopping precisely because they remove the variables that make AI recommendations risky elsewhere: there's no shipping window to account for, no sizing to get wrong, and no returns process to navigate. For an AI shopping agent, a digital gift card is about as low-ambiguity a purchase as e-commerce offers.

Loyalty programs have become a meaningful pipeline into gift-giving, and the generational pattern seen elsewhere in this data holds true here as well. The same BHN and PaymentsJournal report describes this shift as "the loyalty era," finding that 75% of younger consumers exchanged loyalty points for gifts, compared to 57% of older consumers.

Within those redemptions, gift cards are the dominant choice. Almost half of all loyalty point redemptions were for gift cards specifically, with the remainder split roughly 40% toward physical gifts and 10% toward experiences.

The takeaway for brands is direct: the report's stated implication is that integrating gift cards into loyalty programs isn't optional at this point. It's a critical lever for keeping members engaged.

Where consumers discover and research gift cards increasingly splits along generational lines. Older generations still lean heavily on traditional channels, with nearly two-thirds citing email, word of mouth, and print in-store flyers as key touchpoints.

Younger generations are charting a different path. Around half of younger consumers turn to Cash Apps, shopping discount channels, price comparison tools like Google Shopping, deal forums such as Slickdeals and Reddit, and social commerce platforms, particularly TikTok Shop.

That last channel deserves specific attention: TikTok Shop is described as becoming a primary purchase source for Gen Z specifically, marking a real shift away from the search- and email-driven discovery patterns that still define older shoppers.

The winter holidays remain the clearest driver of gift card demand. NRF's 2025 holiday survey projected $29 billion in total gift card spending for the season, with 43% of shoppers planning to purchase at least one.

That demand skews notably older. Age breakdowns show 53% of shoppers 65 and up planned to buy a gift card, more than any other age group, followed by 49% of those 55 to 64, 45% of those 45 to 54, and 38% of those 35 to 44. The pattern is a steady decline in likelihood as age decreases, making gift cards disproportionately a holiday purchase of older shoppers.

Timing within the season matters too. Black Friday was identified as the single leading promotional period for gift card purchases at 31%, ahead of Cyber Monday, and early-season shoppers carried nearly double the gifting budget of those who waited until later in the season.

Beyond the holidays, though, the same report notes that gift cards maintain popularity year-round rather than concentrating solely around winter gifting. That's borne out in a separate trend: BHN's January 2026 research found the share of consumers planning to buy gift cards for their own use, as a deliberate budgeting strategy, nearly doubled year over year, climbing from 31% in 2025 to 56% in 2026.

Back-to-school and graduation season round out the calendar as additional, if less quantified, demand points. Both are recognized gifting occasions for gift cards, though neither currently has data as robust as the holiday-specific figures above.

The data on employer gift-giving contains a real discrepancy worth naming rather than smoothing over. The BHN and PaymentsJournal report found that 65% of employees received a gift from their employer, with nearly 9 in 10 of those gifts being gift cards specifically. But TSG and Bank of America's study found a much lower figure of only 41% of consumers report having received a gift card from their employer. These aren't the same measurement, and averaging them would misrepresent both: different survey populations and methodologies most likely explain the gap, so each is presented here as its own distinct data point rather than reconciled into one.

Where the two studies align is on demand rather than receipt. TSG and Bank of America found that 81% of consumers say they'd like to receive a gift card from their employer which is a clear, uncontested signal that appetite for employer-provided gift cards significantly outpaces current practice, whichever receipt figure is used as the baseline.

This gap between demand and delivery echoes the loyalty program findings above: just as brands integrating gift cards into loyalty programs see stronger engagement, employers have a similarly under-tapped opportunity in corporate gifting, with a large majority of employees already primed to welcome a gift card over other options.

Consumer fraud overall continues to climb sharply. FTC-reported figures show total consumer fraud losses hit a record $15.9 billion in 2025, up from $12.5 billion in 2024.

Within that total, one category is especially relevant to gift cards. Imposter scams, which commonly instruct victims to pay using gift cards, were the most-reported fraud category for the ninth consecutive year, accounting for $3.5 billion in losses, up nearly 20% year over year.

Where the data gets thin is at the gift-card-specific level. The most recent public breakout of dollar losses tied directly to gift cards as a scam payment method dates back to 2021, when the FTC reported that roughly 40,000 consumers lost a combined $148 million to gift-card-payment scams in just the first nine months of that year. No more recent gift-card-specific figure has been made public since, so this remains the most current available breakout even as the broader imposter-scam category has clearly continued to grow.

Giftcards.com and its parent company Blackhawk Network are frequently putting out research, case studies and guides for the gift card and corportate payments industry. Proprietary data from these studies were included in this post that covered such topics as AI shopping and holiday gifting trends. To see the latest authoritative insights or any historical posts, visit the Blackhawk Network Resources page.