In short: in Germany, a gift card is usually valid for three years. But the clock doesn't start on the day of purchase – it starts at the end of the year in which the gift card was issued.
If you sell gift cards, this is more than a legal detail. Validity decides how long a gift card stays open in your books, what belongs on the card and how you handle guests who turn up with an old one. Here are the key rules at a glance – with a separate section for restaurants and cafés.
The rule: three years from the end of the year of purchase
If a gift card has no expiry date, the standard limitation period of three years applies (Section 195 of the German Civil Code, BGB). It starts at the end of the year in which the gift card was issued (Section 199 BGB).
Example: a gift card bought in March 2026 can be redeemed until 31 December 2029. The same date applies to a gift card from December 2026 – both expire at the same time.
Can I set a shorter expiry date?
You can set an expiry date, but not an arbitrarily short one. Shorter periods usually appear in the terms and conditions or on the gift card itself, and courts look at them closely. As a rule of thumb:
- Less than one year is almost always invalid.
- For gift cards for a specific service – such as a set menu at a fixed price or an event – a shorter period can be allowed if there's a good reason for it, for example rising costs.
- For gift cards with a fixed cash value, consumer groups take a critical view of anything under three years.
If an expiry date is invalid, the gift card doesn't last forever – it stays valid until the statutory limitation period ends. The simplest approach is to issue gift cards without your own expiry date and let the three years apply.
What happens after the deadline?
Once the limitation period has passed, you can refuse to redeem the gift card. Many businesses still accept old gift cards as a goodwill gesture: the guest comes back, and a good impression is often worth more than the amount. What matters is that you can always see when a gift card was sold and how much balance is left.
Remaining balance and partial redemption
If only part of a gift card's value is used, the rest stays on the card and can be spent on the next visit. The same deadline applies to the remaining balance as to the whole gift card.
Gift cards in hospitality: validity and VAT
Restaurant gift cards follow the same deadlines as any other gift card: usually three years from the end of the year of purchase. What's more interesting in hospitality is VAT.
Since 1 January 2026, food served in restaurants in Germany is permanently taxed at the reduced rate of 7%, while drinks stay at 19%. For gift cards, this means:
- A gift card for food and drinks, for example worth €50: when it's sold, nobody knows yet whether the guest will order food or drinks. This is a multi-purpose voucher. VAT is only due when it's redeemed, split between food (7%) and drinks (19%).
- A gift card for food only, such as a set menu without drinks: here the tax rate is clear at the point of sale. This is a single-purpose voucher, and VAT is due when it's sold.
If a multi-purpose voucher expires without being redeemed, no VAT is due. With a single-purpose voucher, the tax paid at the point of sale stays paid. Gift cards issued before 2026 may follow different rules because of the tax rates at the time – your tax adviser can tell you more.
How to record gift cards in your accounts is covered in our article Accounting for gift cards correctly.
Checklist: what belongs on every gift card
- The date of issue – this determines how long it's valid
- An expiry date only if you really need one, and never less than a year
- The value or service, for example “€50” or “three-course dinner for two”
- A unique gift card number or code, so each gift card can only be redeemed once
- Where the gift card can be used, for example in all your locations
How to keep track
Paper gift cards and lists in a folder quickly get messy: which gift card is still open, how much is left on it, when was it sold? With a gift card system like gurado, every gift card sold is recorded automatically, along with every partial redemption and the remaining balance. You can see at any time which balances are still outstanding, and you get tax-compliant records for your accounts.
In the restaurant, you redeem gift cards with the free gurado app or web app – even if you already use a POS such as orderbird, Lightspeed, Vectron or SumUp. The app simply runs alongside it. How gurado works in hospitality.
Please note: gurado does not provide legal or tax advice. We researched this information carefully (as of November 2026), but we can't guarantee that it is complete and up to date. For your specific situation, please speak to your tax adviser or a law firm.
Sources for this article (in German):
Verbraucherzentrale: Gutscheine als Geschenk – so lange sind sie gültig
IHK Pfalz: Geschenkgutscheine
DIHK: Ermäßigter Mehrwertsteuersatz für Gastronomie
IHK Schwerin: Steuersätze in Gastronomie und Hotellerie
