When To Send Corporate Holiday Gifts (hint: It might not be December!)

When to send corporate holiday gifts depends on your recipients’ calendars as much as your own. For example, a client whose office closes early and an employee working through the holidays need different plans.

Timing affects how useful your holiday gift can be, too. A reward intended to help with holiday groceries will mean more if it arrives before the big shopping trip.

In this article, we'll explore when to send corporate holiday gifts. We’ll also use new, proprietary holiday reward data to help you build a sending schedule that gives people time to enjoy what you’ve sent.

Corporate holiday gift timing at a glance

TL;DR: Start with the occasion and the person, then choose the send date.

Use this timing guide as a starting point for your holiday giving. Ultimately, once you decide when you want the gift to arrive, you can work backward to the date you need to order or schedule it.

As a perfect illustration, December 25 won’t be relevant to every recipient, especially if you’re gifting across countries or recognizing different holidays. And for those for whom December 25 is relevant, what are the odds they’ll be checking their company email that day???

And note, for the rest of this article, we’ll be mostly talking about using digital rewards for your holiday gifting. Among many benefits, going digital makes it a lot easier to send and deliver gifts, exactly when you want. Physical gifts will require more planning and logistics (which we’ll also cover below).

What Giftbit’s holiday data tells us about timing

TL;DR: Different types of holiday gifts should be sent at different times of the year. 

If you take nothing else away from this article, I hope you'll remember this: your customer campaign and employee thank-you gifts deserve their own calendars.

Giftbit’s Holiday Digital Rewards Index looked at 2025 activity across thousands of customers on our platform. It found two distinct peaks in corporate holiday gift giving:

• Loyalty reward value peaked in November, at 93% above the January–October monthly average
• Employee incentive value peaked in December, at 7.4 times that monthly average

That November peak for loyalty rewards might be surprising, and it’s a great reminder that you need to treat customer and employee gift card programs differently.

Note: These figures show when reward activity rose across Giftbit’s platform. They don’t establish a perfect send date for every business, so use your recipients’ schedules to make the final call.

When should you send holiday gifts to clients?

TL;DR: Consider sending customer loyalty gifts to clients early, maybe even in November.

There’s a reason why Giftbit’s reward data shows a big peak in customer loyalty gifts and rewards in November.

Sending corporate gifts to clients in November or early December gives you room to reach clients before offices close and people disappear into year-end deadlines (think about it: how many personal and professional emails flood your inbox right before the holidays? Do you really want to be a part of that noise?).

It also leaves time to fix any delivery problem (assuming you’re working with a gift card platform that lets you see if there are delivery problems in the first place).

And as always, think about the relationship you’re recognizing. If your account team is already having a year-end conversation with a client, that can be a natural moment to send a gift and name something specific you appreciated about working together—even if that’s in, say, late October.

Of course, a customer promotion works differently from a thank-you gift. If someone earns a reward through a November offer, send it according to the terms you promised. There’s no reason to hold an earned reward for the date you’ve chosen for employee gifting.

And for an international client list, check local holidays and business hours before scheduling. A message that feels timely in one market may arrive during a closure in another. For example, if you’ve got customers spread across Canada and the US, remember that they celebrate Thanksgiving at different times.

When should you send holiday gifts to employees?

TL;DR: Consider sending employee holiday gifts earlier in December, to avoid the rush.

Next up, our data suggests that early to mid-December is a good starting point when you want employees to enjoy their gifts during the season. Sending earlier is usually going to work better for those folks who take extended/early leave, celebrate an earlier holiday, or need time to use the reward for holiday shopping.

Imagine sending a grocery gift card for employees after they’ve already stocked up on everything they need for their holiday celebrations (what my Newfoundlander grandmother used to call her ‘Christmas order’ ♥️ ). Sure, they’ll still appreciate the gift. But you’ve missed a chance to make it especially useful and memorable.

If you’re announcing gifts at a team celebration, you should schedule delivery around the event. And make a separate plan for gifting deskless and/or remote employees, shift workers, and anyone on leave, so their appreciation doesn’t depend on attending.

Still not sure when and what to send? Our guide to bulk holiday gifts for employees can help you match your gift to your team and budget.

How far ahead should you order physical gifts for corporate holiday gifting?

TL;DR: You’ll need to plan your delivery a lot sooner if you plan to send physical holiday gifts. 

Like we’ve mentioned, digital gift cards are a lot easier to manage when it comes to all types of gifts, rewards, and incentive programs. That said, despite our digital focus, even Giftbit offers some physical options, because there are always use cases that require something physical.

Of course, physical gifts don’t have the ease factor of digital ones, so you’ll want to start planning them a lot sooner. Your send date and your recipient’s usable-gift date may be weeks apart, and a physical package needs production and transit time.

So start planning in September or October if you’re coordinating approvals, custom items, or deliveries across regions. Ask your supplier for an order-by date based on when you want gifts to arrive.

Before you commit to that date:

• Confirm quantities, personalization, and packaging
• Check production time separately from shipping time
• Verify delivery addresses and office closures
• Allow for international shipping and customs where applicable
• Agree on a fallback if an item becomes unavailable

Pro tip: A general holiday shipping cutoff may say nothing about how long your customized order takes to produce. Get a date from the supplier before promising one to recipients.

How early should you schedule digital gifts for the holidays?

TL;DR: Digital gifts are a lot easier to schedule and send than physical ones. 

Thankfully, bulk digital gift cards take shipping out of the equation. That said, you still need the right recipient details, approved messaging, and funds in place to get started.

Before scheduling a send:

• Approve the recipient list and gift amounts
• Confirm funding is available
• Select rewards that work in each recipient’s country and currency (a good gift card platform should take out a lot of the guesswork)
• Check the sender name, message, and claim instructions

Again, a good gift card distributor should let you prepare your gifts ahead of time and send them on the date you choose. Giftbit, for example, lets you schedule sending by email, SMS, or individual reward link, and recipients can claim their gift without having to create a Giftbit account or download an app. Our support team, led by the indomitable Andrew Flaro, will even handle any issues your recipients might have (yes, even during the holidays).

We also recommend you check the available digital rewards by country before you finalize an international send. A gift that arrives at exactly the right time still needs to be usable where the recipient lives.

Leave time for people to claim their gifts

TL;DR: Build in extra time for your recipients to use their gifts during the busy holiday season. 

Just because a digital reward arrives quickly, that doesn’t mean your recipients are going to claim it right away. Indeed, in that Holiday Digital Rewards Index, the median time people took to claim their gift cards rose from 45 minutes in November to 162 minutes in December.

Translation: people take a little more time to claim their gifts over the holiday season.

So give people room to notice and claim their gift, particularly when your send overlaps with time off. For employee appreciation, our team almost always recommends a generous claim window or a reward without a claim deadline at all.

Note: We’re talking about whether people claim the gift card you send them, not if or when they end up using the gift card itself.

Next, check what happened after you send the gift. With delivery and claim tracking, you can see which rewards need attention, correct a bad email address, and follow up with someone who may need help.

“Sent” isn’t the end of your gift plan. A bounced email needs a fix; an employee away for the week may simply need more time. Make sure you account for all this in your planning.

What about sending last-minute corporate gifts?

So it’s the middle of December (or later!) and you still haven’t gotten to sending your corporate gifts yet. Don’t worry.

TL;DR: Because digital rewards are so quick and easy to send, you likely still have time to prepare a delivery. 

Choose a channel they use, identify your company clearly, and make the reason for the gift and the claim instructions easy to understand.

The message matters even when you’re short on time. “Thank you for helping our team welcome 200 new customers this year” gives an employee a clearer reason for the recognition than a generic seasonal greeting. Use a detail that’s true for your team.

And if a physical gift can’t arrive when promised, confirm a realistic alternative and explain the change. Or if you announce gifts at a holiday event, make sure your recipients know when they should expect them.

Can you send corporate holiday gifts in January?

Sure, you can send corporate gifts any time of year, and sometimes January is the best call for your relationship or occasion. For example, a planned new-year thank-you can be a lovely way to recognize a client or employee as work resumes.

In this case, make sure you choose a date after the recipient returns from the holiday break and write a message that belongs in January. And a word-to-the-wise: if you’re actually making up for a gift promised in December, tell them. Don’t just quietly change the occasion you mention on your note and hope they don’t notice.

Does the day of the week matter?

Giftbit’s report doesn’t currently establish a best weekday or time of day to send a gift. So use your best judgment: choose a normal working period for the recipient, account for their time zone, and make sure someone on your team can answer questions if needed.

And if you’re giving gifts during a team celebration, coordinating delivery with the announcement will usually matter more than choosing a particular weekday.

Put the full gift schedule on your corporate calendar

Suppose your team finishes work on December 18. You might schedule digital employee gifts for December 10 and check delivery the following day, leaving time to correct an address or help someone claim their reward before the break.

Give the preparation deadline, delivery date, and follow-up check an owner. That’s how you turn a well-chosen date into a gift that reaches the person it’s meant for.

Once you know when to send corporate holiday gifts, Giftbit lets you schedule digital rewards, offer relevant choices, and track delivery and claims.

Create a free account to prepare your holiday sends, or chat with our team about bulk discounts or complicated use cases.