Gifting a skin is one of the nicest ways to welcome a friend into League, celebrate a birthday or thank your duo for a long climb. It is also where a lot of players hit a wall: the gift option is grayed out, the friend you added yesterday does not show up, or the purchase simply will not go through.
The first place to look is the short list of gifting restrictions that Riot publishes in its support guide: how long you have been friends, your summoner level, a rolling 24-hour cap, your region, and whether either account is restricted.
This guide puts those rules in one table, walks through what to check, one rule at a time, shows both ways to send a gift from the client, and answers the questions people search for most, like where to find gifting history and whether event passes can be gifted.
At the end you will also see how to keep a video of the first match your friend plays with their new skin.
League of Legends gifting restrictions at a glance (per Riot Support)
| Rule | Requirement | If you are blocked |
|---|---|---|
| Friend time | The recipient has been on your friend list for at least 7 days (168 hours) | If you removed and re-added them, the 7-day wait starts over from the re-add |
| Level for content gifts | Skins, champions and rune pages need the sender to be level 10 or higher | Play a few more games to reach level 10, then try again |
| Level for RP gifts | Sending RP needs the sender to be level 15 or higher | Between level 10 and 14, pick a skin or champion yourself as a content gift instead |
| 24-hour limits | Up to 10 content gifts sent and 10 received, and 5 RP gifts each way, per 24 hours | Your friend has their own receiving cap, so if others gifted first, wait until 24 hours have passed |
| Same region | Both players must be on the same shard, for example NA or EUW | Gifts cannot cross regions, so to share a server, check the official transfer and new account options in how to play on another LoL server |
| Account status | Neither the sender nor the recipient can be banned or suspended | Wait until the restriction ends, then send the gift |
| New purchases only | Gifts are bought new, so you cannot hand over RP or skins you already own | Your friend cannot receive a skin they already own either, so ask what they have first |
| Payment method | The Gifting Center accepts only certain payment methods, and prepaid RP cards cannot be used there | Send your friend the card PIN instead so they can redeem it in their own client |
Gift option grayed out? Fix it in this order, and skip gifting services
Riot's guide does not list separate error messages. It simply says that a grayed-out gift option in the Social Panel means one of you is not eligible yet, so troubleshooting is a matter of elimination.
Start with friend time, because it is the easiest rule to miss: if you added your friend this week, or removed and re-added them by accident, the 7-day clock is still running. Plan birthday gifts at least a week ahead. Next, check the 24-hour limits.
They roll from the time of each gift rather than resetting at midnight, and your friend has a receiving cap of their own, so on a birthday when several people gift at once, their cap can fill up before yours does.
Then confirm you are both on the same region, make sure neither account is serving a suspension, and pick a payment method the Gifting Center accepts. One warning belongs here too. Some third-party sites sell cheap skins that are delivered as gifts from their own accounts.
Riot's chargeback policy says that when a chargeback happens on a gift, both the sending and the receiving accounts are restricted, so a skin paid for with a disputed card can come back to hurt the account that received it.
Never give anyone your login to receive a gift, because a real gift only needs you on the sender's friend list. And if your card was charged but no gift arrived, contact Riot Support before you dispute the charge with your bank.
How to send a gift in League of Legends
- 1Check that you have been friends for 7 daysGifts only go to players who have been on your friend list for at least 7 days. If you are planning a birthday gift, add your friend a week early so the timer has run out by the day itself.
- 2Open the Gifting CenterIn the client, open the Store and click the gift box icon in the top right corner, or right-click your friend in the Social Panel and choose Give Gift. If that option is grayed out, one of you does not meet the rules yet.
- 3Pick your friend and the giftChoose the friend from the list, then the type of gift, such as a champion, a skin or RP, and the exact item. Skin and champion gifts are paid for with RP, so if Blue Essence and RP still confuse you, read how to buy champions in LoL first.
- 4Write a message and check paymentYou can add a short personal message. When gifting RP directly, only the payment methods shown in the Gifting Center work, and prepaid RP cards are not one of them. If a prepaid card is all you have, share the PIN with your friend instead.
- 5Double-check the name and sendGifts cannot be reversed, so check the Riot ID and tag before you click Send Gift. Then ask your friend to look in their collection to confirm the item arrived.
Before you send: a quick checklist
- You have been friends for 7 days or more, counted from the last time you added them
- Your account is level 10 or higher, or level 15 if you are sending RP
- You and your friend play on the same region
- Your friend does not already own the skin or champion you picked
- If you are not friends yet, you added them using how to add friends in LoL and Valorant
Keep the first match with their new skin automatically with DOR
Once the skin lands, the match where your friend tries it out is the moment worth keeping. DOR is a free Windows app: leave it running, launch League of Legends, and it detects the game and records the whole match.
In League it also cuts highlight clips automatically for kills, multikills from double kill to pentakill, and objectives such as dragons and Baron, and everything collects in My Clips in the app.
If your friend runs DOR too, the first pentakill with the new skin is already waiting in their My Clips without pressing anything, just as our pentakill clip guide describes. Playing as a duo? A Party Clip combines the clips each of you picks from the same match into one video (League and Valorant).
Game sound and your mic are captured together in one track, so the laughs on voice chat stay with the play. Trim a 9:16 vertical cut in the app, or send a dor.gg link that plays straight in a phone browser. See how to share LoL gameplay with friends for the full flow, and the League of Legends hub for everything DOR records in League.
