How to gift a game on Steam

Gifting a game on Steam works from the same store page you would buy it from. At checkout you pick "Purchase as a gift" instead of "Purchase for myself," choose a friend, and Steam emails them the gift or drops it straight in their inbox on the platform. You can send it right away or schedule it for a birthday. There are two things that trip people up: the recipient has to be your Steam friend, and prices between regions can block the gift entirely. Here is how all of it works, including what to do when a gift bounces back.

Buy a game as a gift

Add the recipient on Steam first. You can only gift to someone on your friends list, and they need to have been friends with you for at least three days in most cases. If you have not added them yet, see how to add friends on Steam.
Open the game's store page and click Add to Cart.
In the cart, choose Purchase as a gift rather than purchasing for yourself.
Pick the friend you want to send it to from the list.
Add an optional message, complete payment, and send.

The recipient gets a notification. They accept the gift, and the game is added to their own library permanently. It never touches your library.

Schedule delivery for later

If you are buying ahead of a birthday or holiday, Steam lets you set a delivery date during the gift checkout. Pick the date, and the gift sits in Steam's system until then, arriving in the recipient's inbox on the day you chose. This is the clean way to buy something on sale now and have it land later. If you would rather not commit to a date, you can also just hold the gift and it will wait in your inbox as a pending gift until you choose to send it.

Region restrictions (the part that breaks gifts)

Steam prices games differently in different countries, and it does not want people using gifts to dodge regional pricing. So gifting across regions is restricted.

The rule in practice: you can gift to another region only if the price of the game in your region is not lower than the price in the recipient's region. If your region is cheaper, Steam blocks the gift to protect regional pricing. This is exactly the wall people hit when trying to gift a friend abroad, and the error message is not always clear about why.

Community threads are full of this. In the "How to gift games to friend in another region?" discussion on the Steam forums, users describe the same outcome over and over: the gift is refused when the sender's regional price is lower than the recipient's. The workaround people mention is buying the game when it is not on a region-restricted price, or using a gift card in the recipient's own region instead. Some games are also flagged as region-locked at activation, which is a separate restriction from the pricing check.

What happens if a gift is declined

If the recipient declines the gift, or it stays unopened, it is returned to you. The refund goes back to whatever you paid with: your Steam Wallet or your original payment method. A declined gift is not lost money. You get it back and can send it to someone else or refund it outright if you are still inside the standard refund window.

One caveat: once a gift is redeemed and played, it falls under the normal refund rules, and at that point only the recipient can request the refund. So if you think there is any chance the game is wrong for them, it is cleaner to let them decline it before redeeming than to sort out a refund after.

Gift a game vs a gift card

Sometimes a gift card is the better move.

Send a specific game when you know exactly what they want and you are both in compatible regions. It is personal and it is one click for them to accept.
Send a Steam gift card or Wallet code when you are not sure what they want, or when region restrictions block a direct game gift. A Wallet code in the recipient's own region sidesteps the cross-region pricing wall entirely. See our guide to the Steam Wallet and gift cards for denominations and how the codes work.

If someone hands you a code rather than a gift, redeeming it is a separate quick process, covered in how to redeem a Steam code.

FAQ

Can I gift a game to someone in another country? Only if the game does not cost less in your region than in theirs. If your region is cheaper, Steam blocks the cross-region gift. A gift card in their region is the reliable workaround.

Do you have to be friends to gift a game on Steam? Yes. The recipient has to be on your Steam friends list, and Steam usually requires the friendship to be at least a few days old before you can send a gift.

What happens if the person declines my Steam gift? It comes back to you and the money is returned to your original payment method or Steam Wallet. You can then re-gift it or refund it.

Can I gift a game I already own? No. You cannot gift a copy from your own library. You buy a fresh copy as a gift at checkout.

Can I schedule a Steam gift for a birthday? Yes. During gift checkout you can set a future delivery date, and Steam holds the gift and delivers it on that day.