The federal floor
Since federal reforms took effect in 2010, funds on most gift certificates, store gift cards, and general-use prepaid cards cannot expire less than five years from the date the money was loaded. If a card is reloaded, the clock generally runs from the most recent load. This is a floor, not a ceiling — issuers are free to offer longer or no expiry, and many do.
The same reforms constrained dormancy and service fees, permitting them only after a sustained period of inactivity, only with clear disclosure, and only once per month. Together these two provisions ended the era in which a card could quietly reach zero within a year of purchase. It is genuinely effective regulation and worth knowing you have it.
The distinction that trips people up
The rule protects the funds, not the plastic. A card can carry a printed expiry date that arrives well before the money expires — that date typically relates to the physical card or its network credentials, not your balance. When it passes, you are entitled to have the underlying value made available, usually by requesting a replacement.
This is where value is lost to a misunderstanding rather than to a fee. Someone sees a date on the front, assumes the money is gone, and throws the card away. Ask for the replacement. Note that a replacement fee may apply, and that some programmes waive it if the request is prompted by their own printed date.
What falls outside the protection
The exclusions matter as much as the rule. Promotional cards you did not pay for, loyalty and rewards balances, and cards given away as part of a marketing campaign are generally treated differently and can carry short expiry dates. A rebate card that dies in six months is not necessarily breaking any rule.
Certain paper certificates and some closed-loop arrangements have their own treatment, and cards issued for a single event or a specific promotion may sit outside the protected categories entirely. The practical test: if you paid cash for it as a stored-value product, you are probably protected. If it arrived free, assume you are not.
Where state law goes further
Several states are considerably more generous than the federal floor. Some prohibit expiry on covered cards outright, some ban dormancy fees entirely rather than merely limiting them, and some require cash redemption of small residual balances. These stack on top of federal law rather than replacing it, and the stronger rule generally wins.
Because the variation is wide and the rules are amended regularly, the only reliable answer is a local one. Your state attorney general’s consumer division is the right source, and it is a faster route than arguing with a call centre about a state rule the agent has never heard of.
Using the rule in practice
If an issuer tells you funds have expired inside five years of the last load, that is worth challenging directly and in writing. Cite the load date, ask which exclusion they are relying on, and request the answer in writing. Programmes frequently reverse a position when asked to state its legal basis.
If they hold firm and you think they are wrong, the complaint routes are your state attorney general and the relevant federal consumer regulator. Neither is fast, but both create a record, and issuers respond differently to a regulator enquiry than to a phone call. Keep the receipt, the packaging, and any correspondence.