The Christmas gift cards for employees that people actually use are the ones they get to choose: a multi-brand card they pick at redemption, or an everyday brand such as Amazon, Walmart, Target or Starbucks. To send them to the whole team, put everyone on one list with one amount per person, check where each person lives, and schedule delivery for a working day before the office closes.
At a previous job, I drafted our holiday gift card plan in three tiers: a bigger card for managers, a middle one for senior staff and a smaller one for everyone else. It looked very tidy in the spreadsheet. The head of HR read it, put her coffee down and asked, “So the people who earn the most get the biggest thank-you?” I didn’t have a second slide.
Choosing Christmas gift cards for employees comes down to that kind of question more often than to the brand. What will people actually spend? Is it fair? Will it work for the person in the other office, the other state or the other country, and will it arrive before everyone logs off for the break? Let’s take them in order.
What Makes a Good Christmas Gift Card for Employees?
A good Christmas gift card for employees is one the person can spend on their own life, in their own country, without effort. Four things decide that: how much choice it gives, where it can be redeemed, how easy it is to claim and whether the value fits what they’d actually buy.
Here’s what to check before you pick anything:
- Choice. A single-brand card is a guess about each person’s habits. A multi-brand card lets them make the call. That matters more at Christmas, when you’re buying for a whole team at once rather than one person you know well.
- Where it works. Most gift cards are tied to one country. In the Giftronaut catalog, 98% of products are listed for a single country and can’t be sent to a recipient anywhere else (Giftronaut catalog data, 2026), and the same brand bought for the UK won’t redeem in the US.
- Easy redemption. The card that works is the one nobody has to ask about. A Giftronaut recipient opens the reward email, confirms it’s them with a one-time code and lands on the redemption page.
- A value that gets spent. Every product has its own minimum and maximum amount, so a card that suits a $25 gift may not exist at $500, and the reverse.
- How long it lasts. Most cards don’t expire, and where a validity period applies, the issuing brand sets it (12 months is the most common in our catalog). Separately, a reward has to be claimed within its redemption window, 180 days by default.
- Your branding. A company design or logo on the card makes it feel like it came from you, not from a checkout page.
None of these needs a big budget. A $25 card that works where someone lives beats a $100 card for a store in a city they’ve never visited.
What if your team is very mixed?
Choose for the people least like you, not the average. A team with night-shift staff, remote workers, people who don’t celebrate Christmas and people in other countries has very different ideas of a useful card. One card that lets each person choose covers all of them in one order. If you’d rather pick one brand, go down the list and look for anyone who wouldn’t spend it in the first week. If you find even one, go with choice.
Best Christmas Gift Cards for Staff: 12 Employees Actually Want
The best Christmas gift cards for staff cover everyday spending: shopping, groceries, coffee, food delivery and home. In Giftronaut data, the brands recipients pick most often are Amazon.com (18,446 times), the Visa Reward Virtual Account (3,828), Walmart (2,264), Starbucks (1,928) and Target (1,318) (Giftronaut data, 2026). That’s a list of errands, not luxuries, and it tells you what a holiday card usually turns into: something people needed anyway.
These twelve cover most teams. All of them are US brands except the first, so for staff outside the US, read the next section first.
| Gift card | Good for | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Giftronaut Choice Card | Mixed teams, several countries | Each person picks the brand and currency at redemption |
| Amazon | Almost any purchase | One card covers a huge range of products |
| Walmart | Groceries and household basics | Online or in a store |
| Target | Home, clothing and gifts | Handy for holiday shopping of their own |
| Visa prepaid card | People you don’t know well | Check its terms before you send it |
| Starbucks | Coffee drinkers | Suits a smaller amount |
| DoorDash | Remote staff, long shifts | Covers restaurant delivery |
| Uber Eats | Food delivery | A good second choice next to DoorDash |
| Instacart | Grocery delivery | Useful for holiday cooking |
| Apple | Apps, devices and subscriptions | Best for people already on Apple devices |
| The Home Depot | Homeowners, DIY projects | Tools, garden and repairs |
| Sephora | Beauty and self-care | Better as one option than as everyone’s card |
A single-brand card on that list still makes a lovely gift for a small team you know well. For a whole company, the honest answer is that no single brand suits everyone, which is why recipient choice keeps winning. Rewards where recipients choose their own brand account for 82% of Giftronaut recipients and 82% of total order value (Giftronaut data, 2026).
Our corporate gift cards guide covers the wider choice between Choice Cards, Branded Cards and prepaid cards for business use. If you’re weighing gift cards against physical gifts in the first place, our guide to Christmas gifts for employees compares every gift type.
Christmas Gift Cards for Staff in Several States or Countries
Christmas gift cards for staff in several countries work only when each person gets a card they can spend where they live: one issued for their country, or a global prepaid card. An Amazon.co.uk gift card can’t be redeemed on Amazon.com, and that rule applies to almost every brand, so one US card sent to a whole global team leaves someone with a gift they can’t use.
You have three ways to handle a spread-out team:
- Send a Choice Card to everyone. You don’t need to know where each person lives: the recipient selects their country and currency when they redeem. Giftronaut covers 225 countries with a catalog of 4,300+ brands, and recipients redeem in their local currency.
- Send a global prepaid card where there’s no local catalog. The Global Visa Reward Card can be used in 223 countries, so it fills the gaps where a country has few or no locally issued cards.
- Split the list by country and send a Branded Card per group. This works when you want one specific brand per country, and some countries need to be enabled for your account first.
States are simpler than countries. A US gift card works in every state, so a team spread across New York, Texas and California can share one card type. The difference between states shows up in payroll and in time zones, not in the card.
Language matters for the message, too. Giftronaut can translate a reward email into any of 15 languages, so the person in Manila or Madrid reads the note in their language.
For remote and distributed teams, our planning guide to Christmas gift cards for remote employees goes deeper on time zones, home addresses and delivery checks.
How Much Should Each Employee Get? Amount Tiers
The amount for a Christmas gift card should be one figure per person, the same for everyone on the list, picked from what your budget allows. Equal amounts are easy to explain, easy to approve and hard to resent. A tier here means a budget level for the whole company, not a different card for different job titles.
| Per-employee tier | What it usually covers | A 40-person team pays |
|---|---|---|
| $25 | A coffee run, a lunch, a streaming month | $1,000 |
| $50 | A grocery top-up or a small household item | $2,000 |
| $100 | Something the person had been putting off buying | $4,000 |
The third column is simple multiplication for a hypothetical 40-person team, before any card-deposit fee. Run the same math with your own headcount, and count people the morning the order goes in, because December is when new hires start and contractors roll off.
A few practical notes on amounts:
- Check the product’s limits. About three quarters of the USD products in our catalog have a $5 minimum, and the most common maximums are $500 and $100 (Giftronaut catalog data, 2026).
- Use whole numbers. About 86% of our products require whole currency amounts (Giftronaut catalog data, 2026), so $50 works where $49.50 may not.
- Different amounts are possible. If your policy pro-rates part-time staff, a spreadsheet upload lets you set an amount for each recipient in one order.
For the budget conversation itself, including who counts as eligible and how to set the number before approvals, see our guide to a holiday gift card budget by eligible headcount.
Are Christmas Gift Cards for Employees Taxable?
Christmas gift cards given to employees are taxable wages, however small the amount. The IRS’s Publication 15-B says cash and cash equivalent benefits, including gift cards, “no matter how little, are never excludable as a de minimis benefit.” The same publication lists holiday gifts “other than cash, with a low fair market value” as de minimis, so a small physical gift can qualify. A $25 gift card can’t.
In practice, that means the value goes through payroll like other compensation. Tell your payroll team the amount and the send date before the order goes out, so the value lands on the right paycheck instead of turning into a January correction.
This rule is about employees. W-9 and 1099 forms concern recipients who aren’t employees, such as contractors, so don’t use a contractor process for your own staff. Rules outside the US differ by country, so check with your payroll provider or tax adviser for each country on the list. Our gift card tax guide for employers gathers the related questions in one place.
When Should You Send Christmas Gift Cards? Send-By Dates for December 25
Send Christmas gift cards while people are still at work, ideally two or three days ahead of the break. In 2026, December 25 is a Friday. If your team’s last working day is Wednesday, December 23, a scheduled send on Monday, December 21 gives people time to open the email at work and gives you two days to fix anything that bounces.
Why not Christmas morning? Because people open work email at work. Giftronaut data from 2026 shows 68.3% of redemptions happen between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Eastern, with noon the busiest single hour, and half of rewards are redeemed within one day of being sent. A card that lands while everyone is off tends to wait until January.
December is also the busiest month for everyone sending rewards. In 2025, December had 4.4 times as many Giftronaut recipients as the average month and 37% of the whole year’s recipients (Giftronaut data, 2025). Your payment, your approvals and your colleagues’ inboxes are all busier than usual.
Working back from a Wednesday, December 23 close:
| Date (2026) | What to do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Fri, Dec 4 | Final list, one amount, payroll told | December hires and leavers change the count |
| Wed, Dec 16 | Send the ACH payment | ACH takes 2 to 3 business days |
| Fri, Dec 18 | Send a test email to two inboxes | Catches company spam filters early |
| Mon, Dec 21 | Scheduled send goes out | People open it at work |
| Tue, Dec 22 to Wed, Dec 23 | Fix bounced addresses, resend | Last days before the break |
A few timing details change the dates. ACH typically takes 2 to 3 business days and wire 1 business day, counted from the day your bank sends the payment. A credit card deposit is almost instant during US business hours. A new business account’s first deposit is held while the business is verified, which usually takes one business day, so open the account in early December, not on the 21st. If your office closes on a different day, move every date by the same number of working days.
Company email filters are the other common delay. They often hold reward emails, and the fix is to ask IT to allowlist no-reply@giftronaut.com and the giftronaut.com domain. That’s the reason for the test email on December 18.
For the full planning checklist, from the eligible list to the follow-up email, see our holiday employee gift card checklist.
How to Send Christmas Gift Cards to the Whole Team in One Order
The fastest way to send Christmas gift cards to a whole team is one order with a spreadsheet of recipients, one card type and a scheduled date. With Giftronaut, the steps look like this:
- Fund the account. All orders are prepaid. ACH and wire deposits carry no fee, and credit card deposits carry a 3% processing fee, with a $100 minimum deposit. There are no platform fees on top of the rewards you send.
- Pick the card. A Choice Card lets each person choose the brand and currency, and you can narrow the brands they see. A Branded Card sends one brand you pick in advance.
- Add the design and message. Pick one of the available designs, design with AI or upload your own image, then write the subject line and note. Our holiday gift card message templates include redemption instructions people actually read.
- Upload the team. A spreadsheet upload takes the whole list at once, with a different amount per person if you need one.
- Schedule and confirm. Pick a date and time, review the summary and send a test email to yourself first. A scheduled order can be canceled until it’s sent.
- Track it. Order Management shows each order’s status, and you can resend a reward to a corrected address without being charged again.
Delivery can go by email, SMS (text message) or reward link. SMS reaches US and Canadian mobile numbers only, so for staff anywhere else, use email or a reward link. A reward link is handy for frontline staff without a company inbox, because a manager can hand it over however the team already talks.
Our step-by-step guide to sending holiday gift cards to employees in bulk walks through the upload in detail. If you’re ordering physical gifts alongside the cards, our guide to bulk Christmas gifts covers lead times for those.
Best Practices for Christmas Gift Cards at Work
Christmas gift cards at work go best when the card is easy to use and the note is specific. Most problems with holiday gift cards come from the sending, not the choosing: a missed person, a filtered email, a card for the wrong country or a surprise on someone’s paycheck.
- Call it a holiday gift if not everyone celebrates Christmas. The card is the same either way. The word in the subject line is what people notice.
- Write the note, not just the card. One sentence about the year beats three about the season. If you also send a printed card, keep it to a short line and let the gift card carry the practical details.
- Keep the amount equal. Different amounts by seniority read as a ranking, whatever the intention.
- Watch the redemption window. Rewards have to be claimed within 180 days by default. If you add the Refund Option at order time, the window shortens to 30, 60 or 90 days and you get back 50%, 40% or 30% of any reward left fully unredeemed.
- Check who hasn’t opened it. A short reminder in early January can rescue the cards that got lost in a holiday inbox.
Start With One List and One Date
These days, every holiday list I help with has one amount on it, the same for the newest hire and for the person who signs off the budget. The tiered spreadsheet is still on a shared drive somewhere. I’ve stopped looking for it.
This week, write down two things: the list of people who should get a card, with the country each one lives in, and the last day your office is open. Those two facts decide which card works, how much the order costs and when it has to go out. Everything else is a choice you can make in an afternoon.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I choose a Christmas gift card for a diverse team?
Choose a card that lets each person pick the brand. A Choice Card works across ages, habits and countries in one order. If you prefer one brand, check it against the people whose habits you know least.
When should I start sending Christmas gift cards?
Start planning in early December and send on a working day before your office closes. In 2026, December 25 is a Friday, so a send on Monday, December 21 suits most teams. Send an ACH payment by about December 16.
Are Christmas gift vouchers for employees the same as gift cards?
Yes. “Voucher” is the British English word for a gift card, and the same rules apply. Most vouchers are issued for one country, so staff in different countries need one that works where they live.
Do employees pay tax on a Christmas gift card from work?
Yes, in the US. The IRS treats gift cards given to employees as taxable wages, however small, so they go through payroll. Ask your payroll team or tax adviser how your company reports them.
Can I send Christmas gift cards for employees in other countries?
Yes. Giftronaut reaches 225 countries, and a Choice Card lets each person pick a card in their own country and currency. You don’t need to know where each employee lives before you send it.
What happens if an employee doesn’t redeem their holiday gift card?
The reward stays claimable for 180 days by default. With the Refund Option chosen at order time, a fully unredeemed reward returns 50%, 40% or 30% of its value after a 30, 60 or 90 day window.
