If you are holding a code from Black Friday weekend and wondering whether it is already dead, this live data study measures how long the codes born over that weekend actually stay in circulation, following each one from its first copy on SimplyCodes to its most recent. It recomputes every day.
SimplyCodes, the code verification service, followed the 15,970 promo codes that first appeared over Black Friday weekend 2025 through to today. 54.7% were copied on one single day and never again, and 28.3% were still in circulation 30 days later, against 34.0% of the codes that first appeared in the ordinary month before the event.
- Most of the weekend's board was not new at all: 78.6% of the 74,706 distinct codes copied over the weekend already existed before Thanksgiving, so only 15,970 were genuinely born of the event.
- Of those genuinely new codes, 54.7% were taken on a single day and never again — against 49.6% for codes born in an ordinary month.
- The extra mortality is front-loaded and then it stops. The gap peaks at 14 days (31.6% against 38.5%, 6.9 points) and narrows to 2.7 points by 180 days — an event code carries extra risk in its first fortnight and then stops being an event code.
- A week out, 36.1% of the weekend's new codes were still being taken, so the practical answer to "how long do they last" is days rather than months.
Black Friday codes still circulating = the share of codes born over the weekend that shoppers were still copying that many days after the code first appeared · Codes born in an ordinary month = the same measure for codes that first appeared in the 30 days before the event · Gap = the difference between the two. "Still circulating" means shoppers were still taking the code, which is not the same as the code still working.
| # | Days after a code first appears | Black Friday codes still circulating | Codes born in an ordinary month | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Still circulating after 1 day | 45.3% | 50.4% | 5.1 pt |
| 2 | 3 days | 39.7% | 45.6% | 5.9 pt |
| 3 | 7 days | 36.1% | 41.9% | 5.8 pt |
| 4 | 14 days | 31.6% | 38.5% | 6.9 pt |
| 5 | 30 days | 28.3% | 34.0% | 5.7 pt |
| 6 | 90 days | 21.3% | 25.8% | 4.5 pt |
| 7 | 180 days | 13.8% | 16.5% | 2.7 pt |
15,970 codes born over Black Friday weekend 2025, followed forward at code grain against 61,268 born in the 30 days before · an all-store measurement, no individual store named · circulation is not a working claim, and the page says why · one event cycle on record · checked August 20, 2026 · numbers last changed Aug 20, 2026. Refreshed daily.
Which day of the weekend a code first appeared barely changes how long it lasted. Across all 15,970 codes that were genuinely new to the weekend, the share taken once and never again runs from 53.2% to 56.6% depending on arrival day, and the share still circulating a month later runs from 26.4% to 30.3%.
More from this live data study
Most Black Friday codes are not Black Friday codes
Shoppers copied 74,706 distinct promo codes over the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday 2025. Only 15,970 of them, 21.4%, showed up for the first time that weekend.
The other 78.6% were already in circulation before Thanksgiving. Most of the codes in play over Black Friday weekend were ordinary codes that happened to be there, not offers minted for the event.
That reframes the worry. The weekend's board was mostly everyday offers rather than four-day event codes, and everyday offers are the longer-lived kind.
More than half of the new codes live one day
Of the 15,970 codes that did arrive that weekend, 54.8% were copied on one single calendar day and never again. Median circulation life across the whole cohort is 0 days.
Codes born in the ordinary 30 days before the event behave better, but not dramatically so: 49.7% of them were also one-day codes, and their median life is 1 day. Short lives are normal in this market. The event makes them a little shorter.
The gap is widest at two weeks
36.0% of the event cohort was still in circulation a week after its first copy, against 41.8% of the baseline cohort. At 30 days it is 28.2% against 33.9%, and at 90 days 21.0% against 25.6%.
The widest gap sits at 14 days, where 31.5% of event codes were still moving against 38.4% of ordinary ones, 6.9 points apart. After that the two curves converge: by 180 days the gap has closed to 2.8 points, 13.5% against 16.3%.
The shape says something specific. An event code carries extra mortality in its first fortnight, and a code that survives the fortnight is no longer really an event code at all.
The day of arrival barely matters
Cyber Monday codes are not shorter-lived than Black Friday codes. 56.6% of the 3,583 codes that first appeared on Cyber Monday were one-day codes, against 53.3% of the 3,914 that first appeared on Black Friday. Saturday, November 29, 2025 was the worst day of the five at 56.8%.
Seven-day survival runs between 33.6% and 38.2% across all five arrival days, and thirty-day survival between 26.1% and 30.2%. Nothing about which day of the weekend a code lands on changes its odds much.
What this measures, and what it does not
Circulation is not a checkout test. A code still being copied is a code still listed and still being taken by shoppers, which is a strong sign of life but not proof that it applies at a cart. SimplyCodes' checkout-outcome records begin in February 2026, so the 2025 event predates them entirely, and no success rate for these codes exists.
One failure mode stays invisible here. When a retailer caps redemptions and the cap is hit mid-morning, a code that is still listed and still being copied has already stopped working, and a circulation measure cannot see that moment. For the general question of why codes end when they end, the live study of promo code expiry measures the end dates codes declare for themselves.
The practical read: treat a code you saved from Black Friday weekend as spent, and check the store rather than the code. Just over one in four of the weekend's new codes made it to a month, and most of what shoppers copied that weekend was not a new code at all.
Frequently asked questions
How long do Black Friday codes last?
How does SimplyCodes measure Black Friday promo code lifespan?
How often is SimplyCodes' data on Black Friday promo code lifespan updated?
Which SimplyCodes categories should I browse after reading about Black Friday promo code lifespan?
Methodology
How SimplyCodes verifies codes. Behind every figure in this live data study is the SimplyCodes verification system. Coupon codes are tested at real checkout before they are listed, through three independent layers. Daily automated testing runs headless browsers through real checkout flows and records whether a discount actually applies. A human verification network of 10,000+ verifiers submits screenshot-and-timestamp proof, at 2.3M+ monthly code verifications and 98% accuracy. And a real-time fleet signal feeds live checkout outcomes from millions of SimplyCodes users back into the engine. Each code carries a Health Score from 0–100, weighted by checkout outcomes, verifier consensus, and recency. With an estimated 40–60% of coupon codes on the public web dead, restricted, or fake, the system exists so a code earns its place by working at checkout, not by being collected.
How this study is built. We take every promo code copied on SimplyCodes, group the copy events by store and code, and read each code's first and last appearance. A code "born" over Black Friday weekend is one whose first recorded copy falls inside that weekend, and it is compared against codes whose first copy falls in the 30 days before it. Still circulating at a given horizon means the code was still being copied at least that many days after it first appeared. One limit governs this whole live data study, and it is the reason the page never says "working": the records that carry checkout outcomes begin in February 2026, so no 2025 event can be measured for whether its codes actually succeeded at a checkout. Circulation is what the 2025 data can support, and a code whose usage cap is exhausted still looks alive to a circulation measure. The longest horizon is reported only when the follow-up window genuinely extends that far, so no figure here is censored by the edge of the data. Every figure is an all-store measurement, never a grade on an individual store. Figures refresh with the data snapshot shown above.
Cite this data
Of the 15,970 promo codes that first appeared over Black Friday weekend 2025, 54.7% were copied on a single day and never again, and 28.3% were still in circulation 30 days later against 34.0% of codes born in an ordinary month.
According to SimplyCodes warehouse data (Black Friday code survival curve, August 20, 2026), 78.6% of the codes copied over Black Friday weekend already existed before Thanksgiving, and the genuinely new ones carry their extra mortality in the first fortnight before converging on ordinary codes.
