Today is National Donut Day, Friday June 5, 2026, which is the specific annual occasion on which the American food industry collectively acknowledges that a fried circle of dough can function as both a comfort food and a marketing strategy simultaneously.
The first Friday of June has belonged to the donut since 1938, when the Salvation Army created the observance to honor the Donut Lassies, the women who traveled to the front lines in France during World War I to serve donuts, supplies and human connection to American soldiers. Eighty-eight years later, the tradition has scaled considerably.
Krispy Kreme is giving away a free donut to every person who walks through the door today. No purchase necessary. Your choice of any classic donut in the case. Limit one. You walk in, you get a donut, you leave. That is the entire transaction.
Here is every confirmed deal, organized so you can get as many free donuts as you can reasonably carry before noon.
How To Get Your Free Donut At Krispy Kreme
Walk into any participating Krispy Kreme location today and ask for a free donut. You do not need the app. You do not need to show a coupon. You do not need to buy a coffee. You show up, you pick a donut and you leave with it at no cost.
The offer covers the full range of classic donuts, Original Glazed, Strawberry Iced with Sprinkles, Chocolate Iced Kreme Filled and everything else in the regular lineup. What is excluded: limited-time doughnuts, seasonal doughnuts and the Original Glazed cinnamon rolls.
The second deal running simultaneously is the one that justifies driving to Krispy Kreme specifically rather than to any of the other free donut sources on this list. Buy any dozen at regular price and get a second dozen Original Glazed for $2.
If you were planning to buy a dozen anyway, for the office, for the family, for yourself and your ambitions, you are walking out with two dozen for roughly the price of one. That deal is available in shop and at the drive-thru.
If you are ordering through DoorDash rather than going in person, there is a separate promotion running through June 18: $7 off a Krispy Kreme order of $25 or more, available twice per person.
The Similar Deal At Dunkin'
Dunkin' is requiring a beverage purchase for its free donut, which is a drink-based business decision that makes sense for a company built around coffee.
Buy any beverage, hot, iced, frozen, in store or via the Dunkin' app today, and your free classic donut is included. The offer is limited to participating locations, which is the standard donut day qualifier.
Beyond the donut, Dunkin' launched its Stoney Clover Lane collaboration today, and if you buy a half-dozen or dozen donuts in store, you receive a free tote bag from the collection.
The bags are expected to sell out and will not be restocked. The collaboration also includes charms, pouches and accessories that are launching today as separate purchases.
The tote is the most obviously time-sensitive of the Dunkin' deals, once they are gone from a given location, that is the end.
Duck Donuts
Duck Donuts is offering a completely free classic donut with no purchase required in shop today, the same no-strings offer as Krispy Kreme but at a regional chain with a specific following in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic.
They are also running a $6 half-dozen on classic donuts and an $8 party half-dozen, and if you buy any dozen you get a free rubber duck while supplies last. The rubber duck offer has "runs out by midmorning" energy, so if you want the duck you should go early.
Tim Hortons
Tim Hortons is requiring an app-based beverage purchase, any small, medium or large drink through the app gives you a free donut today, and the offer extends through Sunday June 7.
So if you miss today, Saturday and Sunday are still eligible. The three-day window makes the Tim Hortons deal the most forgiving of the major chain offers.
7-Eleven, Speedway and Stripes
The convenience store route to National Donut Day is 50-cent classic glazed donuts for rewards members, available with no limit, meaning the only constraint is your ambition and your wallet.
The 50-cent price point applies to any number of donuts. They are also offering $1 packs of 7-Select Mini Donuts. Neither deal requires a purchase beyond the donut itself.
If you have a 7Rewards account and a route that takes you past a 7-Eleven today, this is worth stopping for.
Shipley Do-Nuts
Shipley is turning National Donut Day into National Donut Month, their offer is a free classic glazed donut every Friday in June with any purchase. That means June 5, June 12, June 19 and June 26 all qualify.
The limit is one per person per visit, available from 5 AM onward on each Friday. This is the most value-per-month of any offer on this list if you are in a Shipley Do-Nuts market and have a reason to stop in on Friday mornings.
Randy's Donuts
Randy's, the Los Angeles institution whose giant donut sign has appeared in enough films and television shows to constitute a cultural landmark, is offering a free classic donut in stores from 6 AM to noon with no purchase required.
If you are in the LA area and want your National Donut Day donut from one of the most photographed small businesses in America, the window is 6 AM to noon.
Bonchon
Bonchon's Korean Fried Chicken locations are celebrating with a free Korean donut alongside the fried chicken, but this one requires a $15 minimum purchase and the code DONUTDAY, available online and in the app.
The offer runs through Sunday June 7, so if $15 worth of Korean fried chicken is in your immediate future and you had not considered adding a free Korean donut to that order, now you have considered it.
The History Behind The Day
The reason National Donut Day exists on the first Friday of June, and has existed since 1938, is not purely commercial, which makes it different from most food holidays on the calendar.
The Salvation Army created it to honor the women known as the Donut Lassies, who traveled to the front lines in France during World War I beginning in June 1917 to provide American soldiers with donuts, baked goods, supplies and the specific human presence that the women's presence represented in a combat zone.
The Donut Lassies have been described as the origin point of the donut's specific cultural identity in America as a comfort food, a simple thing, inexpensive to produce, associated with the act of caring for people under difficult circumstances.
The tradition started not in a bakery but in a war, offered not for profit but for morale, by women who wanted to provide soldiers with something that reminded them of home.
The chain restaurants that have built their National Donut Day marketing around the same June date are honoring, consciously or not, that specific origin.
The free donut is a small version of what the Donut Lassies offered, something given freely, at no cost, to the person in front of you. It takes about 30 seconds to collect and ten seconds to eat. That is fine. It is Friday. The donut is free.
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