Gift Card Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Sarah Davis | Last updated: October 22, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
Axis Intelligence Research finds that restaurant gift card money waits far longer to be spent than coffee money: Texas Roadhouse’s year-end balance equals 317.6 days of card sales and Darden’s 310.7 days, versus 41.8 days at Starbucks. Five public filers alone held $4,086.9 million in unspent gift card and stored-value balances at their latest year-ends.
Quick Answer
Gift cards are a $29.1 billion holiday purchase in the US, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2025 Thanksgiving weekend survey, and they remain the most requested gift for the 2026 season at 47%. The money behind them behaves very differently depending on the brand. Axis Intelligence Research built a metric called Unspent Balance Days (UBD) from five SEC 10-K filings and found that a dollar loaded on a Starbucks card sits for about 41.8 days, while a casual-dining gift card dollar sits for 298.6 days on a pooled basis. On the fraud side, the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Data Book 2024 logged 41,120 reports and $212 million in losses paid with gift or reload cards. Federal rules bar funds from expiring before 5 years.
Key Findings
- Axis Intelligence Research estimates that Starbucks, Darden, Texas Roadhouse, Brinker and Target held a combined $4,086.9 million in unspent gift card and stored-value balances at their latest fiscal year-ends.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds that Texas Roadhouse gift card balances sit 7.6 times longer than Starbucks balances, at 317.6 Unspent Balance Days versus 41.8.
- Brinker International recognized breakage equal to 8.08% of its gift card sales in fiscal 2026, about 5.5 times the 1.46% breakage-to-load ratio Axis Intelligence Research calculates for Starbucks.
- Starbucks recognized $222.4 million in breakage revenue in fiscal 2025, a sum Axis Intelligence Research notes is 1.05 times the $212 million that US consumers reported losing to gift card fraud in 2024.
- Gift cards were named in 8.6% of FTC fraud reports that identified a payment method in 2024 but accounted for only 1.7% of reported dollar losses, according to Axis Intelligence Research calculations on FTC data.
Gift card statistics at a glance
| Statistic | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expected US holiday gift card spending | $29.1 billion | 2025 season | NRF / Prosper Insights |
| Average planned gift card spend per person | $171.32 | 2025 season | NRF / Prosper Insights |
| Consumers who want gift cards as a gift | 47% | Oct 2026 | NRF holiday survey |
| Unspent balances, five public filers | $4,086.9 million | Latest FY | Axis Intelligence Research from SEC 10-K filings |
| Starbucks stored value and loyalty balance | $1,751.7 million | Sep 28, 2025 | Starbucks 10-K |
| Starbucks breakage revenue | $222.4 million | FY2025 | Axis Intelligence Research from Starbucks 10-K |
| Gift card fraud reports to the FTC | 41,120 | 2024 | FTC Consumer Sentinel Data Book 2024 |
| Reported gift card fraud losses | $212 million | 2024 | FTC Consumer Sentinel Data Book 2024 |
| Minimum time before funds can expire | 5 years | Current rule | 12 CFR 1005.20 (eCFR) |
How much money is sitting unspent on gift cards at major US companies?
There is no official federal count of outstanding US gift card balances. The closest thing to hard data sits inside the revenue recognition notes of public company 10-K filings, where gift card balances are booked as a liability until the card is used. Axis Intelligence Research pulled the latest figures from five filers that disclose them clearly.
| Company | Year-end unspent balance | Fiscal year end | Annual loads or activations | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starbucks (stored value cards and loyalty program) | $1,751.7 million | Sep 28, 2025 | $15,245.8 million | Starbucks FY2025 10-K |
| Target | $1,197 million | Jan 31, 2026 | not disclosed | Target FY2025 10-K |
| Darden Restaurants | $636.7 million | May 31, 2026 | $760.2 million | Darden FY2026 10-K |
| Texas Roadhouse | $448.744 million | Dec 30, 2025 | $514.276 million | Texas Roadhouse FY2025 10-K |
| Brinker International (Chili’s, Maggiano’s) | $52.8 million | Jun 24, 2026 | $127.4 million | Brinker FY2026 10-K |
| Total, five filers | $4,086.9 million | mixed | Axis Intelligence Research |
According to Axis Intelligence Research, the four companies that disclose both sides of the ledger (Starbucks, Darden, Texas Roadhouse and Brinker) held $2,889.9 million in unspent balances against $16,647.7 million in annual loads.
Starbucks: a bank-sized float that is not a gift card business
The Starbucks figure combines stored value cards and unredeemed loyalty Stars worldwide, so it overstates the pure gift card piece. Even so, its $1,751.7 million balance equals 4.7% of the company’s $37,184.4 million in fiscal 2025 revenue. The balance grew 1.9% in fiscal 2025 even though loads fell 3.6%, from $15,807.1 million to $15,245.8 million.
Texas Roadhouse: the holiday campaign shows up on the balance sheet
Texas Roadhouse calls its eight-week holiday gift card campaign one of its most impactful. Its liability grew 11.9% in 2025, from $401.198 million to $448.744 million, while activations rose 7.3%. The year-end liability equals 7.6% of the chain’s $5,878.075 million in revenue.
Darden and Brinker: steady casual-dining floats
Darden’s deferred gift card revenue edged up to $636.7 million from $628.8 million, with activations up 3.1% in a 53-week fiscal year. Brinker went the other way: its liability fell 7.7% to $52.8 million even as gift card sales rose to $127.4 million from $122.8 million.
Target: a large balance relative to how small it is in sales
Target’s $1,197 million gift card liability is just 1.14% of its $104,780 million in net sales. Target says its cards do not expire and are typically redeemed within one year.
Sarah Davis, Digital Finance and Payments Analyst: “Read these balances as interest-free customer funding. Every dollar on an unused card is cash the company already holds without having served the meal or shipped the product. For a chain with a December year-end like Texas Roadhouse, the reported figure is the seasonal peak, so the gift card program is effectively financing the first quarter. Treasury teams model this float; most consumer coverage ignores it.”
What is Unspent Balance Days (UBD), and which brands’ gift cards sit longest?
Unspent Balance Days (UBD) is an Axis Intelligence Research metric that converts a company’s year-end gift card balance into the number of days of card sales it represents. The higher the number, the longer the average loaded dollar waits before it is spent.
Formula: UBD = year-end unredeemed gift card or stored-value liability ÷ (annual activations or loads ÷ days in the fiscal year)
Worked example, Texas Roadhouse 2025: 448.744 ÷ (514.276 ÷ 364) = 317.6 days.
| Company | UBD, latest year | UBD, prior year | Inputs (latest year) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas Roadhouse | 317.6 days | 310.6 days | 448.744 / (514.276 / 364) | Axis Intelligence Research from 10-K |
| Darden Restaurants | 310.7 days | 310.6 days | 636.7 / (760.2 / 371) | Axis Intelligence Research from 10-K |
| Brinker International | 150.9 days | 169.6 days | 52.8 / (127.4 / 364) | Axis Intelligence Research from 10-K |
| Starbucks | 41.8 days | 39.6 days | 1751.7 / (15245.8 / 364) | Axis Intelligence Research from 10-K |
| Casual dining, pooled (Darden, Texas Roadhouse, Brinker) | 298.6 days | (636.7 + 448.744 + 52.8) / (760.2/371 + 514.276/364 + 127.4/364) | Axis Intelligence Research |
Why Starbucks money moves so fast
Starbucks cards are reloaded and spent in a loop, often through the app, so the balance behaves like a checking account. A 41.8-day UBD means the average loaded dollar is spent within weeks, not months.
Why restaurant gift cards sit for most of a year
Casual-dining cards are bought as presents, mostly in November and December, and redeemed on an occasional dinner out. Axis Intelligence Research finds that Darden’s UBD barely moved between fiscal 2025 and 2026 (310.6 to 310.7 days), which suggests the pattern is structural rather than a one-year blip.
How fiscal calendars move the number
Texas Roadhouse closes its books on December 30, right after the holiday rush, so its year-end balance is near its annual high. Starbucks, Darden and Brinker close in late September, May and June. Compare UBD within a company over time first, and across companies with that calendar in mind.
Sarah Davis: “UBD is the number a CFO actually needs when deciding how hard to push a holiday promotion. A brand with a Darden-like UBD is selling a product it will deliver almost a year later, at costs it does not yet know. A brand with a Starbucks-like UBD is running a payments wallet. The two should not be priced, promoted or accounted for the same way.”
How much gift card money is never spent?
Money left on a gift card that a company expects will never be redeemed is called breakage. Under current accounting rules, companies recognize it as revenue gradually, in proportion to how customers redeem the rest of their balances.
| Breakage measure | Value | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starbucks breakage, company-operated stores | $200.4 million | FY2025 | Starbucks 10-K |
| Starbucks breakage, licensed stores | $22.0 million | FY2025 | Starbucks 10-K |
| Starbucks total breakage | $222.4 million | FY2025 | Axis Intelligence Research |
| Starbucks breakage growth | 7.1% | FY2025 vs FY2024 | Axis Intelligence Research |
| Brinker breakage | $10.3 million | FY2026 | Brinker 10-K |
| Darden breakage recognition period | 12 years | Policy | Darden 10-K revenue note |
Breakage-to-load ratio: Starbucks vs Brinker
According to Axis Intelligence Research, Starbucks booked breakage equal to 1.46% of its fiscal 2025 loads (222.4 / 15,245.8), up from 1.31% a year earlier. Brinker booked 8.08% of fiscal 2026 gift card sales (10.3 / 127.4), close to its 8.14% in fiscal 2025.
Why Darden spreads breakage over 12 years
Darden says its gift cards carry no expiration dates or dormancy fees and that it recognizes expected breakage over about 12 years. That is a quiet admission that some casual-dining cards are redeemed many years after purchase, which fits the long UBD.
Sarah Davis: “The 5.5x gap between Brinker and Starbucks is the cleanest illustration I know of how gift card design drives breakage. Reloadable wallets that customers top up for their own use leave little behind. One-time gift cards for an occasional dinner leave much more. For consumers, the takeaway is practical: a restaurant card in a drawer is the card most likely to become someone else’s revenue.”
Breakage also sits close in size to gift card fraud. Starbucks’ $222.4 million in fiscal 2025 breakage is 1.05 times the $212 million that consumers reported losing to gift card scams in 2024, according to Axis Intelligence Research. The two figures cover different periods and different concepts, so treat the comparison as a sense of scale, not a link between them.
How fast do people actually spend gift card balances?
Two filers disclose how much of the balance they started the year with was spent during that year. Axis Intelligence Research converts that into a share of the opening balance.
| Company | Opening balance recognized within the year | Inputs | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Target | 71.2% | 861 / 1,209 | FY2025 | Target 10-K |
| Target | 71.5% | 831 / 1,162 | FY2024 | Target FY2024 10-K |
| Texas Roadhouse | 63.1% | 253.2 / 401.198 | 2025 | Texas Roadhouse 10-K |
| Texas Roadhouse | 62.6% | 234.0 / 373.913 | 2024 | Texas Roadhouse 10-K |
Axis Intelligence Research finds that 28.8% of Target’s opening balance and 36.9% of Texas Roadhouse’s were still unspent twelve months later. Target separately reports $849 million in cards issued in fiscal 2025 that had not been redeemed by year-end.
How much will Americans spend on gift cards this holiday season?
NRF’s 2026 gift card spending estimate is due in late November. The most recent full figures come from its 2025 and 2024 Thanksgiving weekend surveys, conducted with Prosper Insights & Analytics.
| Holiday season | Expected gift card spending | Per person | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $29.1 billion | $171.32 | NRF, Nov 20, 2025 |
| 2024 | $28.6 billion | $170.48 | NRF, Nov 21, 2024 |
| 2023 | $29.3 billion | NRF, as cited Nov 21, 2024 |
Gift card spending is flat, not growing
According to Axis Intelligence Research, expected gift card spending rose 1.7% in 2025 but remained 0.7% below 2023. Over the same window, NRF projects total 2026 holiday sales of $1.013 trillion. Gift cards are holding their dollar level while the wider season grows.
Gift cards per buyer
In 2024, NRF put the average card at $51.18. Dividing per-person spending by that figure gives 3.3 cards per buyer, matching NRF’s own description of three to four cards.
Who gives and who wants gift cards
| Measure | 2026 | 2025 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Want to receive gift cards | 47% | 50% | NRF Oct 2026; NRF Oct 2025 |
| Want to receive clothing | 44% | 46% | NRF |
| Plan to give gift cards | 43% | NRF, Nov 2025 | |
| Plan to give clothing and accessories | 50% | NRF, Nov 2025 |
Axis Intelligence Research notes a demand mismatch worth watching: 47% of consumers want gift cards in 2026, yet only 43% of shoppers planned to give them in 2025, while clothing is given more often than it is requested. NRF’s 2026 survey of 8,094 adults also found 56% saying the economy will affect their holiday plans.
Sarah Davis: “A flat gift card total inside a growing season is the signature of an affordability-squeezed shopper. Gift cards let a giver cap the spend precisely. When I see the wish-list share slip three points and the dollar figure hold, I read it as people keeping the habit but trimming the card value.”
Which types of gift cards do Americans buy most?
| Gift card type | Share of gift card buyers, 2025 | 2024 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurant | 27% | 30% | NRF, Nov 2025 |
| Bank-issued (open loop) | 25% | 25% | NRF |
| Department store | 25% | 25% | NRF |
| Coffee shop | 20% | 22% | NRF |
Restaurant cards are losing share
Restaurant cards are still the top category, but they lost 3 percentage points in a year, according to Axis Intelligence Research. That matters for chains whose UBD shows they depend on holiday gifting. Bank-issued cards, which can be spent anywhere, held steady at 25%.
How much do scammers steal through gift cards?
Gift cards are a favorite payment rail for impostors because they are fast, hard to reverse and easy to read out over the phone. The FTC’s latest data show where they rank. For broader context, see our holiday scam statistics and voice cloning scam statistics.
| Payment method named in fraud reports | Reports, 2024 | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Credit card | 108,881 | FTC Consumer Sentinel Data Book 2024 |
| Payment app or service | 90,571 | FTC |
| Debit card | 76,285 | FTC |
| Bank transfer or payment | 47,336 | FTC |
| Cryptocurrency | 46,899 | FTC |
| Gift card or reload card | 41,120 | FTC |
| Wire transfer | 40,448 | FTC |
Gift cards in 2024: many reports, smaller dollars
Out of 2,600,678 fraud reports in 2024, only 475,905 (18%) named a payment method. Gift cards were sixth by count. Axis Intelligence Research calculates that they made up 8.6% of reports with a payment method but just 1.7% of the $12,537.2 million in total reported losses. Bank transfers ($2.09 billion) and cryptocurrency ($1.42 billion) carry far more money per incident, which our wire fraud statistics and business email compromise statistics cover in depth.
The longer trend: losses per report kept rising
The FTC’s gift card Data Spotlight tracked reports filed directly with the agency, excluding online shopping complaints.
| Period | Direct FTC gift card reports | Losses | Loss per report (Axis) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 32,084 | $70.6 million | $2,200 | FTC Data Spotlight |
| 2019 | 35,323 | $100.0 million | FTC Data Spotlight | |
| 2020 | 36,682 | $115.1 million | FTC Data Spotlight | |
| Jan to Sep 2021 | 39,263 | $147.8 million | $3,764 | FTC Data Spotlight |
Over that window, 26.6% of people who reported losing money to fraud paid with gift or reload cards. The median loss rose from $700 in 2018 to $1,000 in 2021, and Target cards had the highest median loss at $2,500. Reports of $5,000 or more grew from about 8% to about 14% of cases and, according to Axis Intelligence Research, accounted for 75.1% of the dollars lost in the first nine months of 2021. Phone calls were the contact method in 37% of reports.
These Spotlight figures use a narrower base than the Data Book, so Axis Intelligence Research does not compute a growth rate from 2018 to 2024.
Older adults and gift cards
The FTC’s Protecting Older Consumers 2025-2026 report, released October 19, 2026, says adults 60 and older reported about $3 billion in fraud losses in 2025, up from about $2.4 billion in 2024, out of about $16 billion for all ages. Adjusting for underreporting, the FTC estimates the true cost to older adults at $13.3 billion to $119.5 billion. Gift cards were the most frequently reported payment method among older adults in 4 fraud types: tech support, romance, family and friend impersonation, and prize scams.
The 2025 reporting gap
The same report notes that the FTC did not take consumer reports from October 1 to November 13, 2025, during the federal funding lapse. Axis Intelligence Research counts that as 44 days, covering the start of the holiday gift card buying season. When the FTC publishes its 2025 Data Book, gift card fraud counts for the fourth quarter will be understated.
Sarah Davis: “The fraud story has shifted from volume to severity. Gift cards are no longer where most scam dollars go, but each victim loses more, and the victims skew older. For retailers, the risk sits at the register: a nervous customer buying several high-value cards is the moment that matters, and the FTC data show Target cards were the costliest brand by median loss.”
Can a gift card expire, and what fees are allowed?
Federal rules under Regulation E, at 12 CFR 1005.20, cover gift cards sold on or after August 22, 2010.
| Rule | Limit | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Earliest date funds can expire | 5 years after issue or last load | 12 CFR 1005.20 |
| Inactivity before a dormancy or service fee | 12 months | 12 CFR 1005.20 |
| Maximum dormancy fees | 1 per calendar month | 12 CFR 1005.20 |
Many issuers go further. Target and Darden both describe cards with no expiration in their filings, which is one reason balances build up over years. State laws can be stricter still.
What these gift card numbers mean for retailers, restaurants and fraud teams
For restaurant finance teams. Axis Intelligence Research finds that pooled casual-dining UBD is 298.6 days. Holiday gift card sales are a pre-sale of next year’s traffic. Track UBD alongside same-store sales so a strong December is not mistaken for new demand. Compare it with your own payment acceptance costs using our credit card processing fees guide.
For retail and payments strategists. Flat holiday gift card dollars and a three-point slide in wish-list share, to 47%, suggest the category is mature. Growth now comes from digital delivery, open-loop cards and younger buyers; see our Gen Z spending habits statistics and Black Friday statistics.
For fraud and compliance teams. The 44-day FTC reporting gap means 2025 holiday fraud counts will look lower than reality. Do not read a drop in the 2025 Data Book as an improvement.
For consumers. Restaurant cards are the ones most likely to sit and the ones restaurants record breakage on. Spend them early. For seasonal planning, see our holiday shopping statistics and Cyber Monday statistics.
Methodology
Collection. Axis Intelligence Research retrieved every figure on October 22, 2026, directly from primary documents: SEC Form 10-K filings on EDGAR for Starbucks, Darden Restaurants, Texas Roadhouse, Brinker International and Target; the FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024; the FTC gift card Data Spotlight (December 2021); the FTC Protecting Older Consumers 2025-2026 report; the eCFR text of 12 CFR 1005.20; and NRF holiday survey releases from 2024 to 2026. For 10-K figures, we read the XBRL financial statement pages where the full filing would not load.
Formulas.
- Unspent Balance Days (UBD) = year-end liability ÷ (annual activations ÷ fiscal-year days). Fiscal-year days are 364 for 52-week years and 371 for 53-week years.
- Breakage-to-load ratio = breakage revenue ÷ annual loads or gift card sales × 100.
- Opening balance recognized = revenue recognized from the opening liability ÷ opening liability × 100.
- Growth rates = (current ÷ prior − 1) × 100.
Scope notes. The Starbucks balance and loads include loyalty Stars. Texas Roadhouse activations are net of third-party fees. Darden’s deferred revenue is shown gross of $31.6 million in deferred discounts. Target does not disclose total issuances, so no UBD is published for Target. Fiscal year-ends differ, which shifts UBD for companies that close right after the holidays.
Declined calculations. We did not publish six figures because the inputs do not support them: a 2018 to 2024 fraud growth rate (different FTC bases), gift cards as a share of holiday sales (survey intent versus a sales model that excludes restaurants), a press-relayed older-adult gift card share that appears only in a chart image, a Target UBD, an industry-wide breakage rate from two companies, and a 2024 loss per report. Each appears in the CSV as a retracted row with the reason.
About this dataset
The Gift Card Statistics 2026 dataset is the fact table behind this page: 178 rows, each with value, unit, as-of date, segment, source organization, source document, source URL, retrieval date, a primary-source flag, an Axis-calculation flag and the formula used. Every number in this article appears in it.
- File:
gift-card-statistics-2026.csv - License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)
- Mirrors: Hugging Face, Kaggle and GitHub (Axis Intelligence Research)
- Citation format: Axis Intelligence Research. (2026). Gift Card Statistics 2026 [Data set]. Axis Intelligence.
Cite this page
APA: Axis Intelligence Research, & Davis, S. (2026, October 22). Gift card statistics 2026: Unspent balances, breakage, holiday spending and scams. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/gift-card-statistics/
MLA: Axis Intelligence Research, and Sarah Davis. “Gift Card Statistics 2026: Unspent Balances, Breakage, Holiday Spending and Scams.” Axis Intelligence, 22 Oct. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/gift-card-statistics/.
Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research, and Sarah Davis. “Gift Card Statistics 2026: Unspent Balances, Breakage, Holiday Spending and Scams.” Axis Intelligence, October 22, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/gift-card-statistics/.
Frequently asked questions
How much money is left unspent on Starbucks cards?
Starbucks reported $1,751.7 million in stored value card and loyalty program balances at September 28, 2025. That figure includes unredeemed Stars worldwide. Axis Intelligence Research calculates it equals 41.8 days of card loads, so the typical loaded dollar is spent within weeks.
What happens to the money nobody spends on a gift card?
Companies record the share they expect will never be redeemed as breakage revenue. Starbucks booked $222.4 million in breakage in fiscal 2025. Brinker booked $10.3 million, equal to 8.08% of its gift card sales, according to Axis Intelligence Research.
Can a store gift card legally expire in the US?
Under 12 CFR 1005.20, funds on a gift card sold after August 22, 2010 cannot expire sooner than 5 years after issue or the last load. A dormancy fee is allowed only after 12 months of inactivity, and no more than 1 per month. Many large retailers and restaurant chains use no expiration at all.
Why do scammers ask to be paid with gift cards?
Card numbers can be read over the phone and drained in minutes, and the payment is hard to reverse. The FTC counted 41,120 gift card fraud reports and $212 million in losses in 2024, and reports gift cards as the most common payment method older adults name in tech support, romance, impersonation and prize scams.
How much do Americans spend on holiday gift cards?
NRF projected $29.1 billion in holiday gift card spending for 2025, or $171.32 per buyer, against $28.6 billion in 2024 and $29.3 billion in 2023. NRF’s 2026 estimate is expected in late November 2026.
Which kind of gift card is the most popular gift?
Restaurant cards led in 2025 at 27% of gift card buyers, followed by bank-issued and department store cards at 25% each and coffee shop cards at 20%. Restaurant cards fell from 30% a year earlier.
How long does a restaurant gift card go unused compared with a coffee card?
Axis Intelligence Research’s Unspent Balance Days metric puts Texas Roadhouse at 317.6 days and Darden at 310.7 days, compared with 41.8 days at Starbucks. Restaurant cards are mostly gifts used on occasional visits; coffee cards are reloaded and spent like a wallet.
Will the FTC’s 2025 gift card scam numbers be complete?
No. The FTC did not take consumer reports from October 1 to November 13, 2025, during the federal funding lapse, a 44-day gap that overlaps the start of holiday gift card buying. Fourth-quarter 2025 counts will understate what actually happened.