Birthday gifts for colleague: what people actually spend
People spend $55.65 on an adult's birthday gift on average — per Empower, 2025. Every idea below carries its own price range and the date we checked it, so you can see where it sits against that.
This is the national figure for an adult's birthday gift, not a breakdown for a colleague — no published survey we could find breaks spending down by relationship, and the per-relationship numbers you will see elsewhere carry no source.
Under $25
A gift for your boss, where the amount says the most
Upward gifts are the hardest case on this site, and the difficulty is not taste. Anything generous from someone who reports to you reads as an attempt to buy something, whatever was intended.
$0–$25
checked
Under $25
When the office is collecting, and what to put in
The collection is the most common form of workplace gift and the one people most often get wrong in both directions — by opting out, and by contributing conspicuously more than everyone else.
$5–$20
checked
Under $25
The only relationship here with a ceiling instead of a floor
Every other page on this site helps you avoid spending too little. This one is the opposite: at work the risk is spending too much, and it is a real risk rather than an etiquette footnote.
$10–$25
checked
$50–100
The exception: a milestone or a leaving present
The ceiling described elsewhere on this page has one clear exception. A retirement, a departure after years, or a landmark birthday moves the gift into a different category, and the small-and-safe rule stops applying.
$40–$100
checked
Why the ranges, and why the dates
An exact price stops being true within weeks, and a list full of stale prices is worse than one with none — it looks precise while quietly misleading you. So each idea is published as the band it falls into, with the date we last checked, and you can judge how much weight the date still carries.
The spending figure is the more durable number and the more useful one. It answers the question behind the question: not what to buy, but whether the amount you had in mind is generous, normal, or thin for this particular relationship.