There’s no better feeling than rewarding a friend who hard-carried your last ranked win, or surprising your duo partner with the skin they’ve been begging Riot to release for months. If you’ve ever found yourself browsing the in-game store and stopping to ask can you gift in Valorant, you’re not alone. Riot has put specific guardrails in place for gifting to cut down on fraud, account hacking, and unauthorized purchases, but the feature is fully functional for players who meet a small set of requirements. I’ve gifted over a dozen skins to friends over the last few years, and I’ve run into every possible hiccup along the way, so this guide will break down everything you need to know to avoid mistakes.
Can You Gift in Valorant? Eligibility Rules You Have to Follow First
You can’t just gift any random player immediately, as Riot has put basic checks in place for both senders and recipients to prevent misuse of the feature. First, Both you and the person you’re gifting must be level 10 or higher on their Valorant accounts. Riot added this rule to stop smurf accounts from being used to send fraudulent purchases to main accounts, or to sell discounted items to strangers. Second, You have to be friends on Riot’s platform for at least 24 hours before you can send a gift. I learned this the hard way when I tried to send a random teammate who carried our unrated game a Prime Phantom right after we added each other, and the option was greyed out until the next day.
Third, You have to have enough Valorant Points (VP) in your account to cover the full cost of the gift – you can’t split the cost between VP and Radianite Points, or use a combination of your own points and a gift card balance for one gifting transaction. You also can only send gifts to players in the same Riot region as you, so if you’re based in NA and your friend plays on EU servers, you won’t see their name pop up in the gifting list at all, even if you’ve been friends for years. If your account has any active bans or restrictions, including chat bans or competitive play bans, you won’t be able to send gifts until the restriction is lifted.
Step-by-Step Process to Send Gifts in Valorant
Once you confirm you meet all the eligibility rules, sending a gift is really straightforward, even if you’ve never used the feature before. First, open the Valorant store and navigate to the item you want to send. You can only gift items that are currently available in the featured store, daily store, or battle pass track – you can’t gift items from your own inventory, or items that are no longer available for purchase. Next, look for the Gift button right next to the purchase button for the item. It’s a small present icon, so it’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it.
Click that button, and you’ll see a list of all your Riot friends who meet the level 10 requirement and are in the same region as you. Select the friend you want to send the item to, add a short custom message if you want, and confirm the purchase. The custom message can be up to 100 characters, so you can write a silly inside joke or a congratulations message for their recent rank up. I once added a message that said “For carrying our last 3 ranked games, you earned this” when I sent my duo a Prelude to Chaos Vandal, and he still mentions it months later. The VP will be deducted from your account immediately, and your friend will get a notification the next time they log into Valorant that they’ve received a gift. You won’t get a refund if you send the gift to the wrong person, so double check the username before you confirm the purchase.
What Items Can You Gift to Other Valorant Players?
Riot limits the types of items you can send as gifts to prevent abuse, but most popular in-game purchases are eligible for gifting. If you’re not sure if the item you want to send is allowed, here’s a full breakdown of what you can and can’t send as a gift:
The main items you can’t gift are skins you already own in your inventory, limited time event items that are no longer available for purchase, and account titles that are earned through gameplay. You also can’t gift VP directly to another player – the only way to give someone VP is to buy a physical or digital Riot gift card for them to redeem on their own account. A lot of people ask about gifting old, discontinued skins like the original Champions Vandal, and the short answer is you can’t – if it’s not available for you to buy directly in the store right now, you can’t send it as a gift. If you’re gifting a skin bundle, you don’t have to worry about the recipient already owning some of the items in the bundle – Riot will automatically adjust the price of the bundle to discount the items they already have, so you only pay for the parts they don’t own yet.
Common Gifting Errors and How to Fix Them
Even if you think you’ve followed all the rules, you might run into an error when trying to send a gift. The most common issue is the gifting button being greyed out, which usually happens for one of three reasons. First, you haven’t been friends with the recipient for 24 hours yet – all you have to do is wait, and the option will unlock automatically once the time is up. Second, either you or the recipient is below level 10, so you’ll need to play a few unrated matches to hit the level requirement before you can send the gift. Third, you might be trying to gift an ineligible item, like a skin from your own inventory or a limited item that’s no longer for sale.
If you’re still running into issues after checking all these boxes, log out of your account and log back in, or wait a few hours – sometimes store glitches pop up after a new patch drops that temporarily break the gifting feature. Another common error is an “insufficient funds” notice even when you think you have enough VP to cover the cost. That usually happens when you’re gifting a bundle, and the adjusted price for the items the recipient doesn’t own is slightly higher than the estimated cost you saw initially. Just add a small amount of extra VP to your account to cover the difference, and the purchase will go through. Never share your account login information with someone who says they can gift you an item for a discounted rate – these are almost always scams that will lead to your account being stolen or banned.
At the end of the day, if you’re asking can you gift in Valorant, the answer is a resounding yes, as long as you follow Riot’s simple rules. Gifting is one of the best ways to celebrate your friends’ wins, make a new teammate feel welcome, or just spread a little joy in the Valorant community. Just double check your recipient’s username, confirm you’ve been friends for long enough, and make sure you have enough VP to cover the cost before you hit confirm, and you’ll have no issues sending the perfect gift.
