What is Black Friday?
Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States, the day when shops cut prices to draw in customers starting their Christmas shopping. That is close to how the Cambridge Dictionary defines it. In 2026 it falls on Friday 27 November, the day after Thanksgiving on Thursday 26 November.
Why is it called Black Friday? In short: the shopping meaning comes from Philadelphia in the early 1960s, where police used the name for the traffic jams and crowds of the day after Thanksgiving. The popular story about stores going "into the black" came later, in the 1980s. The rest of this page sets out the evidence, a timeline and the myths.
Because Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, Black Friday always lands between 23 and 29 November. The National Retail Federation describes Black Friday and Cyber Monday as part of a five-day shopping period that starts on Thanksgiving Day and runs through the following Monday.
Why is it called Black Friday?
The strongest evidence points to the Philadelphia police. The language writer Ben Zimmer, drawing on research by Bonnie Taylor-Blake shared with the American Dialect Society, explains that in the early 1960s it became customary for Philadelphia officers to call the two days after Thanksgiving "Black Friday" and "Black Saturday". Those were the biggest shopping days for downtown stores, and the crowds and traffic jams made them miserable days to police. PolitiFact adds that the annual Army-Navy football game, held in Philadelphia on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, brought extra visitors into the city that weekend.
Two written sources from the time back this up:
- A 1961 public relations newsletter describes how Philadelphia merchants disliked the police nickname and, on the advice of the city's deputy representative Abe S. Rosen, tried to turn "Black Friday" and "Black Saturday" into "Big Friday" and "Big Saturday".
- A 1994 Philadelphia Inquirer article by Joseph P. Barrett, a former reporter for the Philadelphia Bulletin, recalls how he and a colleague borrowed the police term for a front-page Thanksgiving story in the early 1960s, and kept using it despite complaints from Center City merchants.
The Library of Congress gives a slightly looser answer: as near as its writer could determine, the shopping use began sometime in the 1960s or 1970s in Philadelphia and had to do with the traffic of vehicles and people. Both sources agree on the place and the reason; they differ only on how precisely they date it.
So the "black" in Black Friday was meant as a bad thing: a black day for the people who had to deal with the crowds. The merchants' attempt to rename it failed, and according to Zimmer the term spread to other cities in the 1970s and 1980s.
A timeline of the name
| When | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 6 December 1745 | An early "Black Friday" in London, when news spread that Charles Edward Stuart had landed in Scotland. Unrelated to shopping. | Ben Zimmer, Word Routes |
| 1869 and 1873 | "Black Friday" names financial panics, including the 1869 gold market crash. A different meaning. | Ben Zimmer; Library of Congress; PolitiFact |
| November 1951 | Earliest known use for the day after Thanksgiving, in an article in Factory Management and Maintenance about workers calling in sick that day, not about shopping. | Bonnie Taylor-Blake, via Ben Zimmer |
| Early 1960s | Philadelphia police call the post-Thanksgiving days "Black Friday" and "Black Saturday" because of the traffic and crowds. | Ben Zimmer; PolitiFact |
| 1961 | A public relations newsletter reports Philadelphia merchants trying to rename the days "Big Friday" and "Big Saturday". | Bonnie Taylor-Blake, via Ben Zimmer |
| 1960s or 1970s | The Library of Congress dates the start of the shopping sense to this period, in Philadelphia. | Library of Congress, Inside Adams blog |
| 1970s and 1980s | The term spreads beyond Philadelphia to other cities. | Ben Zimmer |
| 1980s | The "back in the black" profit explanation first appears. | Bonnie Taylor-Blake, via Ben Zimmer |
| 25 November 1994 | Joseph P. Barrett's Philadelphia Inquirer article, "This Friday Was Black with Traffic", describes how reporters spread the police term. | Ben Zimmer |
Myths about the name
"Stores go into the black"
This is the explanation most people have heard: Black Friday is the day retailers finally turn a profit for the year, moving from red ink to black ink. It sounds neat, but according to Taylor-Blake's research it does not appear in print until the 1980s, about two decades after the police nickname. Zimmer calls it a way to give the day a positive meaning. Whatever the day does for retailers' accounts, that is not where the name came from.
The claim about the sale of enslaved people
A social media post from 2018, which keeps resurfacing, claims Black Friday began with enslaved people being sold at a discount. PolitiFact rated it False. The post dates the sale to 1904, nearly 50 years after slavery was abolished in the United States, and its photo shows Aboriginal prisoners in Western Australia, first published in 1905.
The 1869 gold panic
"Black Friday" was used for the gold market crash of 1869, and for other financial panics. That is a real use of the phrase, but a separate one: it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving or shopping, as the Library of Congress also points out.
What Black Friday means for shoppers now
Black Friday is no longer a single day. Big stores now start their sales in late October or early November and run them through Cyber Monday, so the "day" has become a season. Our guide to when Black Friday 2026 starts at each store lists the dates stores have published, and early Black Friday deals covers offers that are already running.
Online, Black Friday is now one of the biggest shopping days of the year. Adobe, which measures US online spending, reported $11.8 billion spent online on Black Friday 2025, up 9.1% on the year before. For 2026 it forecasts $12.9 billion, up 9.2%, which would make Black Friday the second biggest online day of the season after Cyber Monday, and it expects the season's biggest online deals on TVs, toys, apparel, appliances and furniture to land on Black Friday.
A bigger day also means more prices that only look like deals. Our guide Are Black Friday deals real? shows how to check a price history before you buy, and the offers we have checked are on our Black Friday deals page.
What is the Monday after Black Friday called?
It is Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, which falls on 30 November in 2026. In Adobe's figures it is the biggest online shopping day of the year: $14.25 billion in 2025, with a forecast of $15.1 billion for 2026. The offers we track for it are on our Cyber Monday deals page.
Sources
- Ben Zimmer, "The Origins of Black Friday", Word Routes column, Vocabulary.com, drawing on research by Bonnie Taylor-Blake (American Dialect Society mailing list).
- Library of Congress, Inside Adams blog, "Black Friday", November 2009.
- PolitiFact, "Black Friday did not originate with the sale of enslaved people", 1 December 2021.
- Cambridge Dictionary, entry "Black Friday".
- National Retail Federation, Winter holiday FAQs.
- Adobe, holiday season recap of January 2026 and 2026 holiday forecast of 28 September 2026.
All sources were read on 31 October 2026. More Black Friday guides are in our Black Friday hub. This guide is written by the SavingArena Editorial Team.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to what readers ask about this topic.
Why is it called Black Friday?
The shopping name comes from Philadelphia, where police in the early 1960s called the day after Thanksgiving Black Friday because of the heavy traffic and crowds. Merchants tried to rename it Big Friday, but the police term stuck.
What does Black Friday mean?
Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States, when stores cut prices to attract people starting their Christmas shopping. In 2026 it falls on Friday 27 November.
Does Black Friday mean stores go into the black?
That is a popular story, but not the origin. According to research by Bonnie Taylor-Blake, reported by Ben Zimmer, the in the black explanation first appears in the 1980s, about two decades after the Philadelphia police nickname.
Did Black Friday start with the sale of enslaved people?
No. PolitiFact rated that 2018 social media claim False: it dated the sale to 1904, nearly 50 years after slavery was abolished, and its photo shows prisoners in Western Australia.
When did Black Friday start?
The earliest known use for the day after Thanksgiving is from November 1951, about workers calling in sick. The shopping meaning took hold in Philadelphia in the early 1960s and spread to other cities in the 1970s and 1980s.
What is the Monday after Black Friday called?
It is called Cyber Monday. In 2026 it falls on Monday 30 November, and Adobe counts it as the biggest online shopping day of the year.
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