Black Friday deals in 2026 arrive on Friday 27 November. That date is easy to verify: the US Office of Personnel Management lists Thanksgiving Day 2026 as Thursday 26 November, and Black Friday is the day after. The rest is harder, because a price with a line through it is not evidence of anything. Regulators in the UK, the EU and the US have each had to write down what a genuine reduction is, and their reasoning gives you a checklist.
Updated October 2026. General information, not legal advice. Consumer rules vary by country.
What a regulator says a real discount is
Start with the United Kingdom, whose Competition and Markets Authority has published the most concrete test anywhere. Its discount and reference pricing principles, dated 1 August 2024, were written for online mattress sellers, but the CMA says it will have regard to them in other sectors too. Two conditions decide whether a was and now comparison is genuine. On duration, “the ‘was’ price must be offered for a sufficient period of time on the same website” immediately before the discount begins, and that period cannot be shorter than the discounted offer itself. On volume, at least one item should have sold at the higher price for every two sold at the lower one.
The CMA also published what it found. Across sampled periods from 2021 to 2023, four companies sold 7.7 percent, 1.6 percent, 5.5 percent and 0.9 percent of their mattresses at or above the quoted reference price, which the CMA considers likely to be misleading. The high number in a was and now pair is often one nobody paid.
In the European Union the rule is arithmetic rather than judgement. The Omnibus Directive inserted Article 6a into the price indication directive, requiring any announcement of a price reduction to show the prior price, defined as the lowest price the trader applied during at least the 30 days before. Ireland’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission adds that the day the reduction starts does not count inside those 30 days, and that where one campaign applies successive cuts, the prior price stays the lowest from before the first cut.
In the United States the Federal Trade Commission’s Guides Against Deceptive Pricing approach it from the other end. A former price supports a comparison if it was the actual, bona fide price offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period. Where it was inflated so a large reduction could be announced, the guides say the bargain is false.
7 checks to run on Black Friday deals
- Look for the prior price, not the percentage. In the EU that number must be the lowest price of the previous 30 days. A recommended retail price is a different claim.
- Date the discount. A sale running longer than the higher price ever did is the pattern the CMA singled out.
- Record the price yourself in mid November. A dated screenshot costs ten seconds and becomes your own reference point.
- Treat a countdown clock as a claim, not decoration. Falsely saying an offer is time limited to force a decision is a banned practice in UK law, and the CMA’s example is a timer that restarts.
- Read the domain character by character. Lookalike spellings and extra words around a real brand name are the cheapest trick there is, and a padlock only proves the connection is encrypted.
- Check how you are asked to pay. The FTC says never to buy from a seller insisting on gift cards, wire transfers, payment apps or cryptocurrency.
- Find the return terms for sale items specifically. They often differ from the everyday policy, and finding out after delivery is too late.
How to check a price history without guessing
Your own screenshot is the strongest evidence you will ever have, because it is dated and shows the exact listing. Take one now, weeks before the Black Friday deals appear, for anything you intend to buy. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine sometimes holds older copies of a product page too. Price trackers help, but they only know what they crawled, so a flat line may mean the price never moved or that nobody looked. In the EU, since the prior price should be displayed, a discount shown without one is itself a signal. Our guide to shopping sales events covers the timing, and since sale listings attract manufactured praise, it helps to know how to spot fake reviews too.
The scam patterns that peak in late November
The volumes are documented rather than anecdotal. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre reported in November 2022 that Action Fraud had received 19,744 reports of online shopping fraud covering November 2021 to January 2022, with losses of 15.3 million pounds across England, Wales and Northern Ireland and an average loss of around 1,000 pounds per person, up from 775 pounds the year before. In the United States the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported in November 2023 that almost 12,000 victims had reported non-payment or non-delivery during the 2022 holiday season, with losses over 73 million dollars.
- Fake shops. Built to take orders and ship nothing. New domain, no trading address, prices well under everyone else.
- Lookalike domains. A real brand name with an extra word or a swapped letter. Type the address or use a bookmark instead of following an advert.
- Manufactured urgency. Stock counters and only-two-left messages that reset when you reload the page.
- Fake delivery messages. A text about a package, linking to a page that imitates a courier and asks for card details.
- Brand new marketplace sellers. The platform is real, the seller is not, and being asked to pay off it is the tell.
Return rights and the payment method that protects you
In the United Kingdom the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give a cancellation right on distance sales. Regulation 29 lets you cancel at any time in the cancellation period without giving a reason, and regulation 30 ends that period 14 days after the day the goods reach your physical possession, or after the last item where an order arrives in parts. The equivalent 14-day withdrawal right applies across the EU, and sale items are not excluded.
The United States has no general federal right to change your mind on an online purchase, so protection comes from how you paid. The FTC explains that the Fair Credit Billing Act treats charges for items you did not accept or that were not delivered as agreed as billing errors. Your dispute must reach the card issuer within 60 days of the first statement showing the error, and the issuer must acknowledge it within 30 days and resolve it within 90. A seller failing to ship owes a full refund rather than a gift card or store credit. Paying by card remains the cheapest protection there is, and what you do with the money you keep matters as much, as in our piece on saving money on groceries.
Common questions
When is Black Friday 2026? Friday 27 November 2026. The US Office of Personnel Management lists Thanksgiving Day 2026 as Thursday 26 November, and Black Friday is the day after. Many retailers run Black Friday deals for weeks either side.
Are Black Friday deals real discounts? Some are. The CMA found four online mattress sellers had sold between 0.9 and 7.7 percent of units at or above their own quoted reference prices.
How can I tell whether a was price is genuine? In the EU it must be the lowest price of the previous 30 days. In the UK the CMA expects the higher price to have been offered for a sufficient period beforehand and to have produced real sales.
Is a countdown timer against the law? It can be. Falsely claiming limited availability to force an immediate decision is a banned practice under UK law, and the CMA gives the example of a clock that restarts while the offer continues.
What if an order never arrives? In the UK and the EU you have the 14-day cancellation right plus your rights against the seller. In the US the FTC treats undelivered goods as a billing error, with a 60-day dispute deadline.
Sources and further reading
Where the figures and rules above come from, so you can check them:
- Duration and volume tests, and the mattress percentages: CMA, Discount and reference pricing principles, 1 August 2024
- Urgency claims: CMA open letter, 29 March 2023
- Banned practice 7: CMA207 Unfair commercial practices guidance
- Prior price and the 30-day period: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, Ireland
- Fictitious former prices, 16 CFR 233.1: FTC Guides Against Deceptive Pricing
- Billing errors and the 60-day deadline: FTC, Disputing Charges
- Festive shopping fraud losses: UK National Cyber Security Centre, 14 November 2022
- Holiday non-delivery figures: FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 15 November 2023
- The 14-day cancellation period: Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, regulation 30
- Thanksgiving Day 2026: US Office of Personnel Management
Photo credits: SZ 深圳 Shenzhen BaoAn 寶石南路 BaoShi South Road n BaoShi East Road shop 零食很忙 Busy For You Store September 2026 N13P 02 by HUTSEUM ChamZ, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Sale sign in the shopping mall. Discount tag. Bangkok. (48087867208) by Artem Beliaikin from Moscow, Russia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. LaCuCa card reader – payment terminal at supermarket register by Syced, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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