Are Gift Cards and Vouchers Still Valid After the Owner Dies?

You have found gift cards and vouchers in a drawer while sorting out your mum's things, and you want to know whether the family can still use them. Usually you can, but not because you are entitled to as of right. A gift card is pre-paid value that belongs to the estate, and whether it can actually be spent comes down to two things: what the retailer's terms say, and whether there is any time left on the card before it expires.

So the real answer to can I use my mum's gift cards after she died is that most of them are still spendable, most shops will not stop you, and the thing most likely to defeat you is not the death at all but the expiry date printed on the back. Check that first. A card with months of life left is worth spending promptly; a card that has already expired is usually worth nothing, whoever holds it.

This page explains where a voucher sits in the estate, which cards a shop will let the family use and which it will not, and what to do when the balance is large enough that someone starts asking questions about it.

The short answer, and the one check to do first

For most gift cards the family can walk into the shop and spend the balance, because the card does not care who is holding it. But before you plan anything around it, turn the card over and find the expiry date. Gift cards commonly expire, and the window can be shorter than people assume. If the date has passed, the balance is generally gone and there is nothing a bereavement has changed about that.

If there is time left, treat the card as money with a deadline. Spend it, or move to have the balance recognised, rather than leaving it in the drawer for another six months while the estate is sorted out. More cards are lost to an expiry date quietly passing than to any retailer refusing a grieving family.

A voucher is estate property, not a windfall

It is easy to treat a found gift card as a small bonus that need not be mentioned. Strictly, it is not. A gift card or voucher is pre-paid value, which makes it an asset of the estate exactly like a bank balance or the cash found in a drawer. In principle it should be recorded in the estate's valuation and accounted for to the beneficiaries.

In practice, a low-value high-street voucher spent on the weekly shop is not something anyone will lose sleep over, and executors deal with these sensibly. The point at which it matters is when the balance is significant, or when relatives are watching who gets what. Then a voucher spent quietly by one person, and never mentioned, becomes exactly the kind of thing that starts an argument. The safe course is the same one that applies to any estate asset: note what was found, note what it was worth, and note what happened to it.

This is the small end of a much larger principle. Money held in a bank account is frozen the moment the bank is told, and cannot be touched until the estate has authority to release it; a gift card, by contrast, can often be spent the same afternoon. If you want to understand why the cash and the accounts behave so differently, our guide on how long money is frozen after a death sets out the timeline.

Bearer cards and named cards: which the shop will honour

Whether a shop lets the family use a card depends almost entirely on how the card was issued. Most gift cards are bearer cards. They carry value but no name, and any person holding the card can spend it in store, which is why they are given as presents in the first place. For these, the family generally has no problem at all: you present the card, it is spent, and nobody asks who you are.

Named cards and account-linked cards are harder. Where a balance is tied to an online account, a membership, or a specific person's name, the retailer's system may not let another person spend it, and some will ask for the death certificate before they will move or honour a balance. Digital wallets and app-based store credit fall into this group, because they live inside a login rather than on a piece of plastic. Reaching that value can mean getting into the person's account, which is its own task; our guide to what Google hands over to the family of someone who has died explains how access to a major account is decided, and the same broad logic applies to other providers.

Before you plan around a card, find out what is actually on it. Many retailers let you check a balance online or in store using the long number and any PIN hidden under a scratch panel on the back, and the balance on the card is what counts, not what anyone remembers loading onto it. If a card is damaged or the number is unreadable, the receipt or the account it was bought from can let customer services trace and reissue it, which is one more reason to keep the paperwork you find alongside the card rather than throwing it out.

The honest summary is that policies vary enormously between retailers, and the only way to know is to ask. Contact the shop's customer services rather than assuming you will be turned away, because many are more accommodating than their printed terms suggest, particularly once they understand the circumstances.

Can you get cash instead of spending it?

Usually not. Retailers are generally not obliged to exchange a gift card for cash, and most terms and conditions say so in plain words. A gift card is a promise to provide goods or services up to its value, not a deposit of money you can withdraw. So even where a large balance is sitting unused, the realistic option is to spend it on something the estate or the family can use, not to convert it back into cash for the estate accounts.

This is one reason vouchers are worth dealing with early rather than banking on them as a source of funds. They cannot pay a bill, settle a debt, or contribute cash to the estate. They can only be spent where they were issued, on what that retailer sells, before they run out.

There is one narrow exception worth knowing. Some retailers will, as a gesture rather than an obligation, refund or reissue a balance to the family where a card cannot reasonably be used, for example a card for a shop with no branch the family can reach. It is always at the retailer's discretion and never something to rely on, but it is worth asking about politely if a meaningful balance would otherwise simply be wasted.

If the retailer has gone into administration

There is a harder scenario worth naming, because it catches people out. If the shop that issued the voucher has gone into administration or otherwise failed, the card may be worth little or nothing. Voucher holders usually rank as unsecured creditors, which places them near the back of the queue when a failed business is wound up, behind the banks and the tax authorities.

Sometimes administrators keep honouring gift cards for a period to keep stores trading, sometimes they stop accepting them immediately, and sometimes they accept them only alongside a cash purchase of equal or greater value. It depends entirely on the administration, and the terms can change from one week to the next as the process moves on. If you hold a card for a retailer that is clearly struggling, spending it sooner rather than later is the safest response, because the value can disappear with very little warning. Gift cards are not protected the way bank deposits are, so there is no compensation scheme to fall back on if the balance is lost. The consumer guidance from Citizens Advice is a good place to check your position if a retailer whose vouchers you hold has run into trouble.

Where you find them, and what else turns up

Gift cards rarely surface on their own. They come to light when the house is being sorted, tucked into birthday cards, wallets, kitchen drawers and coat pockets, alongside cash, old cards and receipts. It is worth going through methodically, because the same search that turns up a forgotten voucher turns up the paperwork that names accounts and policies the family will need later. Our guide to clearing the house before probate without losing records covers how to do that without throwing away something important, and how the property's insurance is affected while it stands empty is set out in home insurance on a house left empty after a death.

Keep anything you are unsure about rather than binning it. A card with no obvious balance may still hold value, and a receipt with a reference number can be what customer services need to check a balance or reissue a card that has been damaged.

Recording it, and the bigger picture

For a modest voucher, common sense is enough: use it, keep the receipt, and let the beneficiaries see it in the accounts if anyone asks. For a larger balance, or where the family relationships are tense, record it properly from the start. Write down what was found and its value, and note how the balance was used, so that the executor can show a clear line from voucher to spend. That single habit heads off most of the disputes vouchers cause.

Across the UK the consumer position on gift cards is broadly the same, because it turns on the retailer's contract terms rather than on where the death occurred. The only nation-specific point is the authority the estate needs where a retailer insists on formal proof before releasing a larger balance: in Scotland that is confirmation rather than a grant of probate, and Northern Ireland has its own grant process. For everything else in this cluster, the bereavement admin, assets and contracts guide pulls the pieces together.

Sorting a drawer of vouchers is the small, almost gentle end of settling an estate. The hard end is whether there is enough behind someone to cover a mortgage or keep a family going when the income stops. If dealing with this has made you think about that, you can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker look at your own circumstances.

Frequently asked questions

Do gift cards form part of the estate?

Yes. A gift card or voucher is pre-paid value, so it is an asset of the estate in the same way as cash found in a drawer. In practice its worth depends entirely on the issuer's terms, which may prohibit transfer, and on whether the card still has time left on it. A modest balance spent sensibly is rarely an issue; a large one should be recorded and accounted for like any other asset.

Will a shop let the family use a card in someone else's name?

Many will, because most gift cards are unnamed bearer cards that any holder can spend in store. Named or account-linked cards are harder, and some retailers ask for the death certificate before moving a balance. Policies vary widely, so ask customer services rather than assuming you will be refused, and do it before any expiry date on the card runs out.

Can I get a refund instead of spending the voucher?

Rarely. Retailers are generally not obliged to exchange gift cards for cash, and most terms say so explicitly. If the issuer has gone into administration the card is usually worthless, because voucher holders rank as unsecured creditors with no compensation scheme behind them. Spending the balance promptly, on something the family can use, is almost always the practical answer.