National Best Friends Day: date, ideas and what to text

The first sign is usually a tag. Someone you went to high school with posts a blurry photo from 2009, a cousin shares a picture of two people in matching sunglasses, and then you notice the date: June 8. It’s National Best Friends Day, and the person who gets your news before anyone else hasn’t heard from you yet.

This page covers the useful parts: when the day is, what’s actually known about where it came from (less than most sites claim), how it differs from the other friendship days, and what to do and send. Every message and caption below was written for this page, so your friend won’t have seen it on ten other lists.

Quick answer: when is National Best Friends Day?

National Best Friends Day is every year on June 8. It’s an unofficial day, not a federal holiday, so nobody gets the day off and nothing closes. The next ones fall on Tuesday, June 8, 2027 and Thursday, June 8, 2028.

Nobody knows for sure who started it, and the popular story that Congress created it comes with no law or record to back it up. To mark it, send your best friend one specific message and pick a day to get together.

What National Best Friends Day is, and where it came from

The idea is narrow. Most friendship days cover your whole circle. This one is for a single person: the friend whose name you’d write down if a form had room for only one.

People usually mark it with a text, a post or a plan. It’s mostly a US observance, but the same June 8 date shows up online in the UK too.

Is it an official holiday?

No. Federal law lists 11 legal public holidays, from New Year’s Day to Christmas, and National Best Friends Day isn’t one of them. No government body has designated it either: it lives on calendars of fun days, not in any law.

The 1935 story you’ll see everywhere

Look up the day’s history and you’ll keep reading that the US Congress created it in 1935 and chose June 8 because the weather is usually nice. The pages that repeat this don’t point to a law, a resolution or any congressional record. Treat it as a story, not history. Who actually started the day, and when, isn’t on record.

What’s clear is where the day lives now: mostly on social media, where people post on June 8 under #NationalBestFriendsDay. That’s not a bad home for it. A day with no official rules can be marked however suits the two of you.

Best Friends Day vs. Friendship Day vs. International Day of Friendship

Three days with similar names get mixed up every summer. Here’s how they differ:

• National Best Friends Day: June 8. Unofficial, with no known founder. About your one closest friend.
• Friendship Day (US): the first Sunday in August. Informal: no law sets it. About your friends in general.
• International Day of Friendship: July 30. Proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 2011. About friendship among peoples and cultures, as a path to peace.

In short, June 8 is about one person, August is about your friends in general, and July 30 is about friendship on a much bigger scale. If you came here for happy friendship day wishes, the messages below work for any of the three. Just swap the name of the day.

How to celebrate National Best Friends Day

Check the calendar first. June 8 usually lands on a weekday (in 2027 it’s a Tuesday), so the big plan may fit better on the weekend before or after. Send the message on the day itself, though. A text on June 8 is what tells them you remembered.

If you live close: do the thing only you two would do

Skip the generic friend date and repeat something that belongs to the two of you: the diner you hit after every exam, the trail you walked the summer one of you got dumped, the terrible movie you both quote. Going back to an old spot says more than a new restaurant. If you can’t get a whole evening, a 30-minute coffee before work still counts. Bring one printed photo of the two of you from years ago and hand it over without a word.

If you live far apart

Pick something you can do at the same moment in two places: order the same takeout and eat it on a call, or walk your own neighborhoods with earbuds in and describe what you see. Mail a card a week early with “open on June 8” on the envelope. Before you hang up, each of you names a month for the next visit. If you want to send a surprise they can rewatch, a short video from a team in Africa saying their name is one option; more on that below.

On a small budget, or none

The ideas people remember tend to cost almost nothing. Write a letter by hand about one specific year of your friendship. Print three old photos at a drugstore kiosk and write the date and the place on the back of each.

Record a voice note telling a story they’ve probably forgotten, start to finish, in under a minute. Or cook their favorite dinner and let them control the music.

At work or at school

A work best friend still counts. Take them to lunch on June 8, or leave a card on their desk with one line about the project you survived together. For a whole team, a board where anyone can pin a thank-you note to a coworker keeps it friendly without making anyone feel ranked.

If school is still in session on June 8, a card swap where every student writes one kind line to a classmate works well, as long as everyone is paired up and nobody is left out.

With a best friend from years ago

Most people can name a best friend from an earlier chapter: summer camp, a first job, a freshman dorm. June 8 gives you a reason to look them up that needs no explaining. Keep the first message to two lines, and make one of them a question they can answer in a sentence.

If they write back warmly, suggest a call. If they don’t, you’ve still sent something kind, and that’s enough.

If you have more than one best friend, or married yours

Some people have two or three friends who each hold the title in a different part of life. You don’t have to rank them. Give each one a different reason: the college friend gets the old story, the work friend gets lunch, the neighbor gets a backyard dinner.

If your best friend is your spouse or partner, use the day to celebrate the friendship side of things. Do something you used to do before you were a couple, and tell them you’d pick them as a friend too.

Happy Best Friends Day messages to text your best friend

Each line works best with one real detail swapped in: a city, a year, the name of your spot. Where you see brackets, fill them in. Where you don’t, change at least one word so it sounds like you.

Short texts

• “Happy Best Friends Day. You get the full, unedited version of my week, and nobody else does.”
• “You decode my texts with zero context and zero punctuation. Happy June 8.”
• “Apparently today is our holiday. I’m observing it. Lunch?”
• “[Number] years in, and I still save the good stories for you.”
• “I’m renewing your best friend contract for another year. Same terms. No raise.”

Heartfelt messages

• “Happy Best Friends Day, [name]. [The winter you had me over for dinner twice a week] comes to mind more than you’d guess. You acted like it was nothing. It wasn’t. Thank you.”
• “Plenty of friendships end with a move or a new job. Ours made it through [college, two jobs and a move across the country]. I don’t take that for granted.”
• “With you I can tell a story badly, out of order, and you still laugh at the right part. Thank you for that.”
• “Whenever someone asks how to be a good friend, I point at you. Happy Best Friends Day.”
• “You carried more than your share this year and still checked on me every week. My turn to check on you, [name].”

For a long-distance best friend

• “Happy Best Friends Day from [city]. The coffee here is fine. The lack of you is the problem.”
• “It’s Best Friends Day and you’re [number] miles away, which feels personal. Call at 8? Your time.”
• “Something is in the mail for today. If it’s late, blame the post office, not me.”
• “I added a second clock to my phone set to your time zone. Don’t make it weird.”
• “I’m booking the flight for [month]. Consider this your Best Friends Day warning.”

For an old friend you haven’t talked to in a while

• “Saw it was Best Friends Day and your name came to mind before anyone else’s, which says something. Hope things are good on your end, [name].”
• “Happy Best Friends Day to my original best friend. I still remember [the treehouse, your mom’s lasagna, the bus route we took].”
• “It’s been too long, and I didn’t want another June 8 to go by without saying it: you mattered a lot to me growing up.”
• “Hi [name]. Are you still [running, painting, coaching your kid’s team]? I’m using Best Friends Day as my excuse to ask, and I’d really like to hear about it.”

Happy friendship day wishes for the group chat

One message to everyone beats eight separate ones. These fit the first Sunday in August or July 30; on June 8, swap in “Best Friends Day” if the chat is your inner circle.

• “Happy Friendship Day to the only group chat I’ve never muted.”
• “Happy Friendship Day to the chat that has planned [number] trips and taken one. Worth it.”
• “Happy Friendship Day. Motion to pick a reunion date today. Who seconds?”
• “Grateful for every person in here, including whoever keeps renaming the chat.”
• “Happy Friendship Day to the people who visited my first terrible apartment and still visit the current one.”

Funny Best Friends Day messages

Search for funny Best Friends Day quotes or funny friendship day messages and the same few famous lines come up everywhere. Your friend has seen them too. The jokes that land come from the friendship itself: the shared crimes against good judgment, the chaos of the group chat, the running jokes nobody else gets. One rule for teasing: poke only at what they already joke about themselves.

• “Happy Best Friends Day to my getaway driver, my fact-checker and my second opinion on every couch I almost bought.”
• “Today we honor the person who talked me out of three tattoos and one terrible sublet.”
• “Nobody else can tell from a one-letter ‘k’ that I’m furious. That’s real friendship.”
• “I’d wait in any line for you, including the post office in December.”
• “Thank you for [number] years of agreeing that everyone else was the problem.”
• “Our group chat has outlived three phones each and all of our New Year’s resolutions.”
• “Happy Best Friends Day to the person who has eaten off my plate since 2011 without once asking.”
• “I’d sit through all 300 photos of your trip. Twice.”
• “Happy Best Friends Day. You’re legally required to laugh at this text.”

For a friend who gives as good as they get, there are more teasing lines in our article on birthday wishes for a friend.

Best Friends Day captions for your photos

Keep captions short and let the photo carry the rest. Add #NationalBestFriendsDay or #BestFriendsDay if you want your post to show up next to everyone else’s on June 8, and leave the hashtag off if the post is really just for the two of you. The captions below work on any photo post, wherever you share it.

For a photo of the two of you

• “Still laughing at the same dumb joke from [year].”
• “Co-founders of every plan that started with ‘it’ll be quick.’”
• “Proof that at least one person likes me on purpose.”
• “Ask us how we met. Actually, don’t.”
• “[Number] years of splitting the check down to the cent.”

For a throwback photo

• “Before either of us could drive. One of us still shouldn’t.”
• “[Year] us had no idea what we were doing. Current us doesn’t either, but we do it together.”
• “Evidence that we’ve been encouraging each other’s worst ideas for years.”
• “Posted without asking. You’re welcome. Happy Best Friends Day.”

For the whole crew

• “Some people have a support system. I have this crew.”
• “Every person in this photo has bailed me out at least once.”
• “Still choosing each other. Still can’t agree on which photo to post.”
• “Happy Best Friends Day to my entire starting lineup.”

Small gift ideas for Best Friends Day

A gift is optional on June 8. A specific message does more than anything you can wrap, so if you do buy something, keep it small and tie it to your friendship.

• Something with your inside joke on it. A mug, a T-shirt or a tote printed with the phrase only you two understand.
• A framed screenshot. The first text you ever sent each other, or the funniest one, printed and framed.
• Their snacks, restocked. A box of the exact snacks they buy for themselves, plus one they’d never try.
• Tickets for later in the summer. A class, a show or a game, so the celebration gets a second part.
• A copy of the book, album or game you first bonded over. With a note inside the cover about the day it started.
• A small matching pair. Two of something cheap and a little silly: bookmarks, enamel pins, socks.

If your best friend is impossible to shop for, our article on gifts for someone who has everything goes deeper.

A Best Friends Day video from a team in Africa

One more idea, for the right friend: a team from Africa films a short video for your best friend, with their name, your message and a dance. It suits a friend who loves a surprise and doesn’t mind an audience, a best friend in another state or country, or a group that wants to send one thing together on June 8. It’s not for a friend who hates attention, and it won’t stand in for showing up if they’d simply rather see you.

Start ($24) covers a spoken message of up to 75 characters and a dance to the team’s own music, with 7 teams to choose from. Hit ($63) adds a handwritten chalkboard message of up to 60 characters, up to 2 printed A4 photos and the music you pick, with 17 teams. The video runs 40–60 seconds and comes as an MP4 via Telegram, WhatsApp or email. We film on the day of your order, and the video arrives from 2 hours after payment; the Express option ($15) moves your order to the front of the queue.

Every video is filmed by real people: no AI, deepfakes, auto-generation or green screen. Every team member officially works with us and is paid above the average rate in their region. Most teams film in the DR Congo, and two work in Egypt.

The team speaks English with an accent. The name and the main phrase are said clearly, so keep the message short and put the name first.

To see the format, watch Happy birthday, bestie (The Charmers, from $24). It’s a birthday sample, but a Best Friends Day video works the same way.

Lines for the team to say (75 characters or less)

• “Maya, happy Best Friends Day! Twelve years, and you still pick the movie.”
• “Dev, happy Best Friends Day from Chris. The visit is booked for August.”
• “Tasha, happy Best Friends Day from the whole group chat. We love you.”
• “Luis, happy Best Friends Day. Your karaoke title is safe until July.”

Board lines (60 characters or less)

• “Happy Best Friends Day, Maya. Love, your plus-one”
• “Dev and Chris: friends since the fifth-grade bus”
• “Tasha, the group chat voted: you’re the favorite”
• “June 8 is officially Luis Appreciation Day”

If that sounds like your friend, pick a team and a package on our custom video greeting page and add your friend’s name and your line at checkout. Not sure which team they’d like? With a gift certificate, the team, the wording and the music are their call.

Best Friends Day FAQ

When is National Best Friends Day 2027?

Tuesday, June 8, 2027. The day is fixed to June 8 every year, so in 2028 it falls on a Thursday.

Is National Best Friends Day a real holiday?

It’s a real observance, but not an official one. It isn’t one of the 11 federal holidays, no government has designated it, and businesses and schools stay open.

Who started National Best Friends Day?

Nobody knows for sure. The claim that Congress created it in 1935 is all over the internet, but none of the sites making it cite a law or a congressional record.

Is Best Friends Day the same as Friendship Day?

No. Best Friends Day is June 8 and celebrates your closest friend. Friendship Day in the US is usually the first Sunday in August and covers friends in general, and the UN’s International Day of Friendship is July 30.

What do you do on National Best Friends Day?

Send your best friend a specific message on the day, then make a plan: a meal, a call at a set time if you live far apart, or a visit on the nearest weekend. A post with #NationalBestFriendsDay is optional.

What should I text my best friend on Best Friends Day?

Pick a moment from your friendship that nobody else would recognize and tell them why it still makes you smile. For example: “Happy Best Friends Day. We got stuck on the worst group project of junior year, and I’d do it again just to meet you.” One real detail does more than a long paragraph.