Black Friday 2026 Countdown

Black Friday, the day after US Thanksgiving, is the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season, famous for major sales in stores and online around the world.

History

The phrase "Black Friday" was first attached to the day after Thanksgiving in Philadelphia during the 1950s and 1960s. Police officers used it, none too fondly, to describe the immense crowds, snarled traffic, and long shifts that arrived when suburban shoppers and football fans flooded downtown streets the Friday before the annual Army-Navy game. It was originally a term of exasperation, not celebration. By the early 1980s retailers had begun to reframe the name into something appealing. A popular explanation took hold — first found in print in 1981 — that this was the day stores finally moved from operating "in the red" to turning a profit, or "in the black," for the year. Whether or not the accounting story is strictly accurate, it stuck, and merchants leaned into it with early openings, limited "doorbuster" deals, and heavy advertising that turned the day into an unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. Through the 1990s and 2000s the event grew steadily larger, with stores opening earlier each year and crowds lining up before dawn. The rise of e-commerce reshaped it again: Cyber Monday appeared around 2005, and by the 2010s the single day had stretched into "Black Friday week" and spread far beyond the United States, reaching the United Kingdom, much of Europe, and markets across the globe as a recognizable retail moment.

Meaning

For many people, Black Friday marks the symbolic opening of the year-end holiday season, a signal that gift-giving, gathering, and festive preparation are about to begin. Over the decades it has grown into a shared ritual: comparing advertised deals in advance, planning routes through favorite stores, or waking early to hunt for a specific item. For some families the outing is as much about spending time together as about the purchases themselves, a lighthearted tradition folded into the long Thanksgiving weekend. The day also carries a more reflective side. Its scale has sparked ongoing conversation about consumer culture, prompting counter-observances such as Buy Nothing Day and, in the United States, Small Business Saturday, which encourages shopping at local independent stores. In this way Black Friday has come to represent both the excitement of the season's kickoff and a moment when many pause to weigh how, and how much, they choose to spend.