How Much Do Americans Spend on Christmas? 2026 Data
Every October, the headlines quote an “average” Christmas spend, and every year the number is different. One survey says $737. Another says $1,654. Readers then judge their own budget against a figure that may not measure what they think it measures.
The season itself keeps growing. The National Retail Federation forecasts that November and December retail sales will reach $1.013 trillion in 2026, up 4.2% from $972 billion in 2025, passing $1 trillion for the first time.
This post lines up the major 2026 Christmas spending statistics side by side. It shows where the money goes, who spends the most, how people pay for it, and what these averages should, and should not, do to your own budget.
How Much Do Americans Spend on Christmas in 2026?
The honest answer is a range, because each survey counts something different. Credible 2026 figures run from $737 per shopper to $1,654 per household, and the gap is mostly about what is included, not about anyone being wrong.
The headline numbers for 2026:
- Total: $1.013 trillion in November and December retail sales (NRF forecast)
- Per household: $1,654 planned, counting goods, travel, events, and entertaining (Deloitte)
- On gifts: $879 planned on average by people buying gifts (NerdWallet)
- The middle: a $500 median gift budget, meaning half of adults plan less (Gallup)
Every figure in this post is planned spending: what people told surveyors between August and October 2026 that they expect to spend. Intentions and receipts are cousins, not twins, and the difference matters later in this post.
The direction is up, with a wobble. Deloitte’s household total dipped to $1,595 in 2025 before rising to $1,654 this year. Its retail goods figure is up 10%, while activities fall 4%: shoppers are putting money back into things and taking a little out of trips and events.
The Big Surveys, Side by Side
| Source (2026 unless noted) | Figure | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| NRF forecast | $1.013 trillion total | All November and December retail sales, excluding autos, gas, restaurants |
| Deloitte | $1,654 per household | Gifts and goods ($988) plus travel, events, entertaining ($666) |
| NerdWallet | $879 per gift buyer | Gifts only |
| Circana | $779 per person | Holiday purchases overall |
| Accenture | $737 per shopper | Total planned holiday spend |
| Gallup (October 2025) | $1,007 mean, $500 median | Gifts only |
Planned spending from each source’s own release. Deloitte surveyed 4,000 US consumers in late August and early September 2026; NerdWallet’s figures come from a Harris Poll of 2,060 adults in September 2026.
Read the table by its third column. Deloitte’s $1,654 is a household buying the whole season, including flights and parties. NerdWallet’s $879 is one person buying gifts. Comparing them directly is how Christmas averages mislead.
Why the Averages Disagree?
Three things move these numbers more than shopping habits do: the unit, the basket, and the average itself.
Unit and basket. Per person is smaller than per household, and gifts only are smaller than gifts plus travel and food. A survey that counts a family’s flights to grandparents will always beat one counting presents.
Mean versus median. Gallup’s October 2025 figures show the trap clearly: the mean planned gift spend was $1,007, but the median was $500. Half of adults planned to spend $500 or less. High spenders pull the mean up to double the typical budget.
When you ask. Gallup asks in October and again in November, and shoppers usually trim their estimate between the two. In 2025, the plan fell from $1,007 to $778, a $229 drop, the largest midseason trim Gallup has recorded. October numbers are ambitious. November numbers are closer to receipts.
So when a headline quotes one average this December, ask three questions: per person or per household, gifts or the whole season, mean or median. The answers explain almost the entire gap between $737 and $1,654, and they take ten seconds.
Where the Money Goes?
Gifts take the largest share, but not the whole budget. In the NRF’s most recent per-person survey (2025), shoppers planned $890 in total: $628 on gifts, and $262 on food, decorations, and greeting cards. Roughly 70 cents of every holiday dollar went under the tree.
Within gifts, family dominates. NRF’s 2025 survey put planned spending on family at $496.70 per buyer, roughly four times the amount for friends, coworkers, or anyone else. The trend is mostly a family expense.
Deloitte’s 2026 split tells the same story at household level. Of the $1,654 total, $988 goes to retail goods and $666 to holiday activities: travel, events, and entertaining at home. The celebration around the gifts costs about two-thirds as much as the gifts and goods themselves.
One shift is worth noting. Half of shoppers in Deloitte’s 2026 survey plan to give an experience as a gift, up from 39% in 2024. Most of them pair it with a physical item, so experiences are joining the gift pile rather than replacing it.
The value hunt shapes how the money is spent. Deloitte classifies 38% of shoppers as holiday value seekers, stacking habits like promotions, rewards, and store brands.
Counterintuitively, they plan to spend 12% more than everyone else: saving on each item funds a longer list.
Who Spends the Most?
Income separates Christmas budgets more than any other factor. Deloitte found households earning $200,000 or more plan to spend $3,607 this year.
Households earning under $50,000 plan $693. The top group budgets more than five times the bottom group. Gallup’s income split points the same way. In its late-2025 readings, households earning $100,000 or more planned $1,479 on gifts.
Households under $50,000 had trimmed their plan to $651, down from $776 the year before. Affluence sets the ceiling; pressure sets the cut.
Age is shifting, though. For the first time in Deloitte’s survey, Gen Z and millennials together account for 50% of all holiday spending. Both groups plan double-digit increases after pulling back in 2025, while older generations hold steady or trim.
Parents sit at the high end of gift spending, as most people would guess. The mechanism is simple: more names on the list, and the names at the top of it, children, are the ones nobody cuts.
It is also why household figures describe families better than per-person ones: the household is where the list actually lives.
How Americans Pay for Christmas?
A large share of this spending is borrowed. In the ICSC 2026 Holiday Intentions Survey, 49% of adults expected to borrow money for purchases they cannot immediately pay off in full. And 23% expected to still be paying for their 2026 holiday purchases in 2027.
Price pressure is the backdrop. In Deloitte’s survey, 79% of shoppers expect holiday prices to be higher this year. When the same list costs more, the gap between the plan and the paycheck tends to land on a card.
Context from the Federal Reserve makes the borrowing less surprising. In its household well-being survey, 37% of adults said they could not fully cover a $400 emergency expense with cash or its equivalent. When the gift list alone can run to $879, credit fills the space between the plan and the paycheck.
Timing is the other release valve. Deloitte found 22% of shoppers starting earlier than last year, and NRF’s 2025 survey gave the reason plainly: 54% of early shoppers start early to spread out their budget. An October start is a payment plan with no interest.
What a Normal Christmas Budget Actually Looks Like?
Average Christmas spending figures describe a country, not a household. For your own planning, the useful numbers are the median and your own list, in that order.
Three rules keep the statistics in their place:
- Anchor on the median, not the mean. Half of adults plan gift budgets of $500 or less. A budget in that range is not behind; it is the middle of the country.
- Set the total before the season sets it for you. A total chosen in October, split by person, survives December. A total discovered in January is just a bill.
- Count the celebration, not only the gifts. Food, travel, and events added two-thirds again on top of goods in Deloitte’s figures. Budgets that ignore them are the ones that break.
That is the method behind our Christmas budget guides: total first, per-person amounts second, shopping last. The national average never enters the calculation, because it was never your number.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does the average American spend on Christmas gifts?
It depends on which average you take. NerdWallet’s 2026 survey found people buying gifts plan to spend $879 on average. Gallup’s median tells the other half of the story: half of adults plan to spend $500 or less on gifts. Both are true, and the median is the better picture of a typical budget.
How much do Americans spend on Christmas in total?
The NRF forecasts $1.013 trillion in retail sales across November and December 2026, up 4.2% from $972 billion in 2025. The figure covers retail sales only. It excludes cars, gasoline, and restaurants, and it counts the whole country’s tills rather than household budgets.
How much should I spend on Christmas?
There is no required amount, and the averages should not set yours. A workable budget is one you can pay in cash by January: a total first, split across your list, with food and travel counted in. If extra work is an option, our extra income guides cover seasonal ways to fund the difference instead of borrowing it.
Do many Americans go into debt for Christmas?
Yes. In the ICSC 2026 survey, 49% of adults expected to borrow for holiday purchases they cannot pay off in full right away, and 23% expected to still be paying in 2027. Planned spending also tends to fall as the season goes on: Gallup’s gift estimate dropped $229 between October and November 2025.
Wrap Up
So, how much do Americans spend on Christmas? About $1 trillion across the season, roughly $1,654 per household on everything, and a median of about $500 on gifts. The spread between those numbers is the real finding: there is no typical Christmas, only a typical range.
Do one thing with these numbers this week: write down your own total before the sales start, and split it by name. The free Christmas budget planner turns that total into a filled-in plan in about fifteen minutes.
For the gift side of the list, our gift guides by budget price real presents at real levels, so the per-person amounts you just set have somewhere practical to go.
