How to Redeem an Xbox Gift Card

An Xbox gift card adds to your Microsoft account balance, spendable on games, add-ons, Game Pass and other digital content in the Xbox and Microsoft stores. Redeeming takes about a minute. Below: the steps on console and web, what each error message actually means, and what the balance will not do.

How to redeem an Xbox gift card

1. Go to redeem.microsoft.com in a browser, or on a console press the Xbox button → Store → Redeem.
2. Sign in to the Microsoft account the balance should land on — the same one your games are on.
3. Enter the 25-character code from the back of the card or the gift email.
4. Select Next, then confirm.
5. The value lands in your Microsoft account balance and is used automatically at checkout before any saved card is charged.

On console

Xbox button → Store → Redeem (or "Use a code"). If you have the physical card, the console camera can scan the QR code on the back instead of typing all 25 characters — faster and no O/0 mistakes.

What you will need

• The 25-character code, under the scratch-off on a physical card
• A Microsoft account
• An Xbox console or any browser

Xbox code not working: what each error means

• "That code isn't working. Check the code and try again." The catch-all. In practice it is a mistyped character — O against 0 and I against 1 are the usual pairs — or a character still under the scratch panel. Scan the QR code on console instead of typing if you can.
• "This code has already been redeemed." Single-use, and the balance is on whichever Microsoft account claimed it first. Check your own balance before assuming the worst; if it was not you, keep the receipt and contact Microsoft support.
• Region mismatch. A card bought in one country will not redeem on an account registered to another, and the account's country cannot be changed while it holds a balance.
• Wrong kind of code. A Game Pass trial code, a game download token and a gift card all look alike and all go through the same box, but a trial code adds no balance — it starts a subscription. Check what the card actually says.
• Damaged scratch panel. If a character is scraped away, Microsoft support can look the code up from the receipt and the card's serial.

What Microsoft balance can and cannot buy

It spends on digital content in the Xbox and Microsoft stores — games, add-ons, Game Pass, apps and films. It cannot be transferred to another account, cannot be refunded to cash, and does not cover purchases outside those stores. The balance is tied to the account's country, so it also does not survive a region change.

If you are never going to use it

Microsoft balance is account-locked from the moment the 25 characters go in. An unredeemed card still has options; a redeemed one is Xbox credit forever.

FlipGift cannot buy this one, and it is worth saying why rather than burying it. Our escrow marketplace works by having a seller place a real, shipped order with their own gift card — the buyer gets a parcel, the money releases on delivery, and the code never changes hands. A code that only buys digital content has no parcel behind it, so there is nothing for a seller to do here. Store cards that ship things (Amazon, Home Depot, Nike and ~190 others) work here; this one does not.

That leaves the resale marketplaces, and the trade they ask for is the whole risk: they can only pay you by taking the code, and whoever holds the code can spend it. What each route actually pays for an Xbox card sets out the numbers first. Two rules either way — check the balance immediately before you sell, and never send a code to a private buyer who promises to pay afterwards.

Official source: Microsoft's redeem page.