In short: a coworker gift is judged against what everyone else spent, not against how much you like the person, so match the group's number instead of beating it. Keep it appropriately impersonal — nothing about their body, their home, their faith or their private life. When you are unsure, buy something that gets eaten, used up or used weekly, and write a real note.

These are buying guides, not lab reviews: we have not tested every product on this page. Prices, availability and ratings move constantly — whatever Amazon shows when you click is the authoritative figure.

You know their coffee order and roughly nothing else. You have a number in your head, a date somebody else picked, and a gift that will be opened where people can see it.

That is the actual problem. It is a social one, not a shopping one, and it gets solved in this order: the cap, the headcount, the date, then the object.

Proportion is the whole etiquette

Spending noticeably more than everyone else is not generosity. It reprices every other gift in the room as cheap, in public, with your name on it.

It also hands your coworker a small debt. They now have to work out whether they owe you something in return, and they have to do that in front of the same people.

Spending far under the group fails the other way. A last-minute candy cane says you remembered in the parking lot. Both mistakes are visible, and one number prevents both.

Finding the room's number without an awkward conversation

Nobody publishes what a coworker gift costs. There is no federal series and no survey with named methodology that reports it, so treat any "average" you see quoted as invented.

What exists is convention, and convention is findable:

  • Ask whoever organized it last year. One message, in private: "What did people spend last time?" That is a logistics question, not a personal one.
  • Read the invite again. If an exchange named a cap, the cap is the specification. It is a ceiling, and coming in under it is fine.
  • If nobody has named a number, name one yourself. Put it in writing, early, before anyone has shopped. A published number protects the people with the least to spend.
  • Watch what lands on the table. Where the group trades snacks and cards, a $60 gift is out of scale however well chosen.

One data point exists, and it is old. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reported in 2014 that labor attorney Harley Storrings called $20 a standard cap. That is one attorney describing practice in 2014, not a benchmark and not a rule.

Employer practice varies more than any roundup admits. SHRM reported in 2016 that some organizations treat gifts under $20 as small enough to ignore. Others require larger gifts to be reported, and some bar outside holiday gifts altogether. Your own handbook governs you.

The "$25 IRS limit" is not a rule

Someone in every office repeats that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) caps gifts at $25. The figure is not in the rule people think it is in.

IRS Publication 15-B, for use in 2026, defines a de minimis benefit as property or service with "so little value" that accounting for it is impracticable. It names no dollar figure at all.

The $25 lives in IRS Publication 463, which caps what a taxpayer may deduct for business gifts to one person in a tax year. That is a deduction rule for a business. It is not a ceiling on what you may spend on the person at the next desk.

One IRS line gets quoted correctly and then misapplied. Publication 15-B says gift certificates and gift cards are "never excludable as a de minimis benefit," no matter how little. That governs what an employer must treat as wages.

Publication 15-B is written for employers, about employer-provided benefits. Nothing in it covers one colleague buying another a $20 box of chocolates. Your group's convention and your employer's policy govern your gift.

If you both work for the federal executive branch, there is a written rule and it is narrow. 5 CFR § 2635.304(a) permits, on an occasional basis, gifts between employees of "items, other than cash, with an aggregate market value of $10 or less per occasion." Section 2635.302 prohibits a gift to an official superior outright, subject to those exceptions.

Do not import that number if you work anywhere else. A different figure, $20 per occasion and $50 a year, appears in § 2635.204(a), and it covers gifts from an outside source such as a contractor. Neither section is the private-sector rule, because there is no private-sector rule.

The distance rule

Appropriately impersonal is the target, not a compromise. A gift that only makes sense between close friends, given to a colleague, asserts a closeness they never agreed to.

Two published tests do most of the work. SHRM's president and chief executive officer, Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., offered one in 2021: would you feel comfortable giving this to the chief executive of the company? SHRM offered another in 2014: is this something you would happily tell your family about?

Both point the same way: stick to something you could hand to anyone at any level of the organization.

A peer gift does not touch:

  • Their body or appearance. No clothing sizes, no jewelry, no fragrance, no toiletries, no skincare, no hair products. SHRM's 2014 list of gifts to avoid names clothes, jewelry, items of personal hygiene, perfume and cologne.
  • Their diet, weight or fitness. Not a diet book, not a scale, not a workout plan, not a "healthy" swap for something they eat.
  • Their faith, politics or beliefs. Taylor's 2021 guidance flags gag gifts and anything that could read as offensive on grounds such as race, disability or religion.
  • Their romantic or family life. Nothing about dating, marriage, fertility or their children.
  • Their money. Nothing that implies you know what they earn or how they spend it.
  • Their home. Decor is a taste claim about a room you have never been in.
  • How they work. A time-management book aimed at a coworker is a performance review with a ribbon on it.

Federal regulation draws the same line. 5 CFR § 2635.203(b) excludes greeting cards and "items with little intrinsic value" from the definition of a gift. A music player with "significant independent use" is a gift. A card is a message; an object is a transaction.

That is why the note is the part that always works. A written line naming what somebody actually did outranks any object in this price range.

The safe lanes

Six categories survive the proportion test and the distance test at the same time. Each one attaches to a routine rather than to an identity. All six are collected on our gift picks page.

This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through one, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend what we would suggest to a friend.

Sealed, store-bought food and drink

Food gets used up, so nothing sits on a shelf generating polite guilt. It is also shareable, which quietly converts a private gift into an office one.

Food is the most common coworker gift and the one most likely to go wrong. Allergies, dietary restrictions and religious observance are all real and none of them are yours to ask about casually — if you do not already know, choose something shelf-stable and unopened with the ingredients printed on the outside, or choose something that is not food. Where a workplace prohibits alcohol, that includes anything alcohol-flavored.

There is a labeling reason behind that instruction. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) names nine major food allergens: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame.

Sesame is the newest of the nine. The FDA states that the FASTER Act made it the ninth major allergen, and that sesame has had to be labeled on packaged foods since January 1, 2023. Older advice online still says eight.

Packaged food carries that declaration on the outside. A tin of homemade cookies carries nothing, and your coworker cannot read your kitchen. Buy the sealed version and let the label do the work. Browse chocolate gift boxes on Amazon and read the ingredient panel before the packaging.

One desk object that fixes a small annoyance

The test is two months out: is this eaten, used weekly, or sitting there? Novelty rarely survives it.

What does survive is small and specific. A cable organizer for someone whose charger keeps falling behind the desk. A good notebook for someone who takes notes in meetings on scrap paper. Desk cable organizers cost little and answer a complaint you have already heard out loud.

A genuinely good version of something they already use

This is the most reliable lane in the list. You are not guessing at taste; you are upgrading a routine you have watched happen every morning.

The pen they borrow. The travel mug they carry. The tea they keep in the drawer. Buy the better version of the thing already in their hand, in the small size. Gel pen sets and insulated travel mugs both sit comfortably inside a modest cap.

A book, with the reason stated

A book works when you can say why in one sentence, and fails when it reads as a diagnosis. "You mentioned the film — this is the book it came from" is a reason. "This changed my life" is homework.

Something for the commute

Commute gear is useful without being personal: a compact umbrella, a transit-friendly bottle, a snack tin for the drive. It also works when you have never seen their desk.

A gift card, at a modest value

Between peers, a gift card is often the most considerate answer rather than a cop-out. It creates no clutter and imposes no taste.

Choose somewhere near the office or somewhere everyone uses, keep the value inside the group's number, and put it in a card with a written line. The IRS rule about gift cards quoted above applies to employer-provided benefits, not to the coffee card you buy with your own money.

Group collections, sideways

A peer collection goes across, not up. The ask is the part people get wrong, and it is the part that decides whether the gift feels like a gift.

A collection between coworkers only works if declining is free. Ask once, in writing, name one amount, and let people opt out without replying or explaining — no list of who paid, no follow-up to the people who did not. Then put the whole team's name on the card, including theirs.

That is this site's rule. It is also, almost word for word, what the federal government requires of its own employees.

5 CFR § 2635.303(f) states that a contribution "is not voluntary unless it is made in an amount determined by the contributing employee." Any recommendation of an amount must be accompanied by "a statement that an employee may choose to contribute less or not at all."

The regulation's own worked example is blunt. A secretary told an Assistant Secretary's staff that they "should contribute $5" toward a wedding gift. The published verdict: "Her method of collection is improper." Naming $5 was fine; omitting the sentence about declining was not.

The mechanics, in order:

  1. One person asks, once. Ideally not the most senior person in the group.
  2. Ask in writing. Email or a message thread. A hallway ask makes declining a performance.
  3. Name one amount. A number anyone present can meet without arithmetic.
  4. Say declining is free, in the same message. Use the words, and mean them.
  5. Collect privately. One person, one method, no running tally on a whiteboard.
  6. Do not follow up. A reminder turns an invitation into a request.
  7. Put everyone on the card. The whole team, in no particular order.

Step seven is the one people argue about. A card signed only by contributors is an attendance record, and everyone reading it can tell who is missing.

Some people will not contribute. Some are saving, some are new, some already gave privately, and none of them owe you an explanation. Their name goes on the card anyway.

One boundary worth stating. A collection for your manager runs up the org chart. That is a different problem, and it belongs to gifts for a boss, not here.

By occasion

The occasion sets the scale. Federal ethics rules draw a distinction worth borrowing: recurring calendar dates are not the same as occasions of personal significance, and neither is the same as an occasion that ends the working relationship.

A coworker leaving. This is the occasion that scales, because the relationship is changing and nothing is owed afterward. Pool it, keep the per-person ask small, and spend the effort on the card. The federal rules treat resignation, retirement and transfer as their own category under § 2635.304(b)(2), for the same structural reason.

A retirement. Same logic, longer history. A group gift plus a card naming specific things the person did will outlast the object.

A work birthday. Keep it small and low-key. A recurring date is not a milestone, and a birthday should not turn into a bill for eleven people. Federal rules make the same point from the other end: § 2635.304 treats Christmas as a recurring event rather than an occasion of personal significance.

A baby or a wedding collection. These are occasions of personal significance, and a larger pooled gift is normal. Follow the person's lead on how much they want discussed, and do not ask about their plans, their family or their finances to size the gift.

The December exchange. A team gift and a drawn-name exchange are different formats with different rules. If yours is a Secret Santa, the draw, the cap and the anonymity are their own subject — how to buy for a name you drew covers it.

A thank-you for cover. Somebody took your shift or picked up your work. Name what they did, in writing, and add something small and consumable. The specifics are the gift.

A first-day welcome. Make it from the team, not from you, and keep it orientation-useful: the good pen, the snack drawer tour, the card with everyone's name. A personal gift on day one asks a new hire to place a relationship that does not exist yet.

Remote and hybrid teams

If they work remotely, the gift starts with a request for their home address. That request is itself a small imposition, and some people will not want to give it.

Three ways through, in order of preference:

  • Ask plainly, and make no an easy answer. "I'd like to send you something small — happy to skip it if you'd rather not share an address." Then drop it if they decline.
  • Route around it. Whoever handles payroll or team logistics may already have addresses on file. Ask them to send it, rather than collecting addresses yourself.
  • Send something that needs no address at all. A digital gift card, a subscription code, or a written note in the team channel.

Timing is tighter than it looks. An in-office gift can be bought on the way in; a mailed one cannot. Check the carrier's published December ship-by dates for 2026 before you rely on them.

The reveal also changes shape. Nobody watches your coworker unwrap anything, so the moment happens on a call. Say who it is from, and why, in one line.

For a whole distributed team, do the arithmetic before you commit. Fourteen people at $12 each is $168 plus fourteen shipping charges, and at that count the odds that one box arrives late or damaged are not small. Order one or two spares.

Alcohol at work

Stated once, neutrally: never assume a coworker drinks, and never assume your workplace allows it. Plenty of people do not drink for reasons that are none of your business, and plenty of employers prohibit alcohol on the premises.

There is also a practical limit that surprises people. A bottle cannot go through the mail: USPS Publication 52 § 424 makes intoxicating liquors nonmailable, under 18 U.S.C. § 1716.

So the remote version of an alcohol gift is not the same errand as the in-office version. That is one more reason a bottle is a poor default for a distributed team.

By price band

Bands are ceilings, not targets. What each one signals matters more than what it buys.

Under $15. The everyday band: good chocolate, a nice pen, a specialty tea, a snack tin. It reads as thoughtful when the item is specific and thin when it is generic. This is the right band for a work birthday, a thank-you or a team-wide exchange.

$15 to $30. The default band for a coworker you actually work alongside. It buys the good version of a daily object, or a small food set from somewhere real. Most people's mental number already sits here.

$30 to $60. From one peer this is usually too much, and it prices everyone else's gift. It works in two places: a pooled gift where the per-person ask stays small, or a departure for someone you worked beside for years.

The pooled band. A farewell or a retirement collection can run to a real total, because it is divided. Eight people at $10 each is $80, and nobody is put on the spot. Set the per-person figure low enough that saying yes is easy.

What to skip

  • Anything personal. The list in the distance rule, all of it, every time.
  • Anything that needs explaining. If it takes a paragraph of context to land, it is a gift for a friend, not a colleague.
  • Joke gifts. A gag lands only where the friendship is already established, and it is unwrapped in front of people who do not share it. Taylor's 2021 SHRM guidance says the same: avoid gag gifts that could be hurtful or read as insensitive.
  • Anything that comments on how they work. Productivity systems, planners aimed at "getting organized," desk gadgets that fix a habit you find annoying.
  • Anything sized. Clothing, gloves, slippers. A wrong guess is remembered.
  • Homemade food, unless they already eat your baking. No label, no ingredient list, no way for them to check.
  • Anything that buys a favor. A gift attached to a request you plan to make later is not a gift, and people can tell.

The honest answer, more often than this category admits, is a card with a real sentence in it.

FAQ

How much should you spend on a coworker gift?

Whatever the group is spending, which is usually somewhere between $15 and $30 for one person. No named institution publishes an average for coworker gifts, so any figure you see quoted was invented. If an exchange named a cap, the cap is your answer.

Do you have to give gifts to coworkers?

No. Gift-giving at work is a convention, not an obligation, and a well-run exchange makes that explicit. SHRM's 2014 guidance recommends that workplace gifting be opt-in rather than opt-out, so that nobody is pressured into spending.

What do you get a coworker who is leaving?

Pool it, and put the effort into the card. A departure is the one occasion where a larger group gift is normal, because the relationship is ending rather than continuing. A shared gift plus a card naming specific things they did beats any solo purchase at the same price.

Are gift cards appropriate for coworkers?

Yes, at a modest value and with a written note. Between peers a card avoids guessing at taste and creates no clutter. The IRS rule that gift cards are "never excludable as a de minimis benefit" applies to employer-provided gifts, not to one you buy with your own money.

Do you have to contribute to a group gift?

No, and a collection run properly makes declining easy. Whoever is collecting should name one amount and say in the same message that contributing less or nothing is fine. Federal rules require exactly that language of federal employees, under 5 CFR § 2635.303(f).

Is it rude to spend more than everyone else?

It is a misfire rather than rudeness, and it is the most common one. A gift well above the group's number reprices everyone else's as cheap and leaves your coworker deciding what they owe you. If you want to spend more on someone, do it privately, outside the exchange.

What should you never give a coworker?

Anything about their body, diet, faith, politics, romantic life or home. Anything sized. Gag gifts, and anything that only makes sense if you are close friends. SHRM's 2014 list names clothes, jewelry, personal hygiene items, perfume and cologne.

Sources

  1. Internal Revenue Service. "Publication 15-B, Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits," section "De Minimis (Minimal) Benefits." Edition for use in 2026. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b — retrieved August 19, 2026.
  2. Internal Revenue Service, Federal, State & Local Governments. "De Minimis Fringe Benefits." Page last reviewed or updated June 28, 2026. https://www.irs.gov/government-entities/federal-state-local-governments/de-minimis-fringe-benefits — retrieved August 19, 2026.
  3. Internal Revenue Service. "Publication 463, Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses," section "$25 limit." Edition for use in preparing 2025 returns. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p463 — retrieved August 19, 2026.
  4. U.S. Government Publishing Office / U.S. Office of Government Ethics. "5 CFR Part 2635 — Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch," Subpart C, Gifts Between Employees (§§ 2635.301–2635.304). CFR Title 5, Vol. 3, revised as of January 1, 2024. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2024-title5-vol3/pdf/CFR-2024-title5-vol3-part2635.pdf — retrieved August 19, 2026.
  5. U.S. Government Publishing Office / U.S. Office of Government Ethics. "5 CFR Part 2635," Subpart B, Gifts From Outside Sources (§§ 2635.202–2635.204). Same edition and PDF as above. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2024-title5-vol3/pdf/CFR-2024-title5-vol3-part2635.pdf — retrieved August 19, 2026.
  6. United States Postal Service. "Publication 52, Hazardous, Restricted, and Perishable Mail — 424 Nonmailable Intoxicating Liquors." Postal Explorer, no per-section revision date displayed. https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c4_008.htm — retrieved August 19, 2026.
  7. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "Food Allergies." Content current as of March 11, 2026. https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-food-labeling-and-critical-foods/food-allergies — retrieved August 19, 2026.
  8. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "The FASTER Act: Sesame Is the Ninth Major Food Allergen." Content current as of April 12, 2024. https://www.fda.gov/food/food-allergies/faster-act-sesame-ninth-major-food-allergen — retrieved August 19, 2026.
  9. Federal Trade Commission / U.S. Government Publishing Office. "16 CFR Part 255 — Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising," § 255.5. CFR Title 16, Vol. 1, revised as of January 1, 2024; source note 88 FR 48102, July 26, 2023. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2024-title16-vol1/pdf/CFR-2024-title16-vol1-part255.pdf — retrieved August 19, 2026.
  10. Wilkie, Dana. "A Good Workplace Gift-Giving Rule: Would Your Mom Approve?" Society for Human Resource Management, November 17, 2014. https://www.shrm.org/mena/topics-tools/news/employee-relations/good-workplace-gift-giving-rule-mom-approve — retrieved August 19, 2026.
  11. Sammer, Joanne. "'Tis the Season to Refine Gift and Bonus Policies." Society for Human Resource Management, December 8, 2016. https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/benefits-compensation/tis-season-to-refine-gift-bonus-policies — retrieved August 19, 2026.
  12. Taylor, Johnny C., Jr., SHRM-SCP. "Ask HR: How Should You Handle Inappropriate Gifts?" Society for Human Resource Management, April 2, 2021. https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/organizational-employee-development/ask-hr-how-handle-inappropriate-gifts — retrieved August 19, 2026.

Written by Priya Raman, workplace gifting editor. How we work is set out in about and in our affiliate disclosure. Browse every gift pick or read the rest of the articles.