For a day that’s supposed to bring bad luck, Friday the 13th has been awfully good to tattoo shops. People line up for hours to get $13 tattoos, and some shops can barely keep up with the demand.
According to new data from Square, tattoo shops using its payment system sold 170% to 191% more tattoo-related items on the first two Friday the 13ths of 2026 than on an average Friday. Back in 2018, the increase was around 77% to 86%. Square examined 15 Friday the 13ths since 2018, comparing sales with other Fridays in the same month, and the enthusiasm has grown over the years.
Tattoo Shops Are Offering Cheap Ink for Friday the 13th, and Customers Are Flocking In
We can thank Texas for much of this. Dallas tattoo artist Oliver Peck helped popularize the tradition in the 1990s, offering cheap tattoos of the supposedly unlucky number 13. He wasn’t the first artist to do it, but he told VICE in an earlier interview, “I definitely made it an event.” In 2008, Peck tattooed 415 people in 24 hours, earning a Guinness World Record. That’s about one tattoo every three and a half minutes.
Texas hasn’t lost its enthusiasm. Square’s data puts San Antonio at the top for Friday the 13th tattoo activity, with Houston, Austin, Dallas, Waco, and Fort Worth also making the national top 20. Phoenix, however, recorded the largest jump among major cities, with tattoo item sales climbing more than 500% compared with a typical Friday.
The appeal isn’t hard to understand. Shops offer menus of small, ready-made designs called flash tattoos, with some starting at $13 and others running closer to $70. Square puts the typical tattoo item at participating shops around $140, so there’s a serious discount involved. Shops get a line of potential new customers, and customers get an inexpensive excuse to make a permanent decision.
Of course, there’s something mildly concerning about rushing through dozens of tattoos in a day. One artist recalled on Reddit accidentally misspelling “thirteen” after tattooing the word over and over. Imagine getting home and realizing your bargain tattoo came with a typo. No regerts.
New York has a slightly different approach. Square found that its tattoo item sales rose less dramatically, but customers paid more per item than in any other major market. Manhattan’s Daredevil Tattoo even warns that people expecting custom work in a normal setting should probably come back another day.
And the next opportunity is nearly here. Friday, November 13, is this week, with shops preparing for another round of cheap ink and long lines.
Just triple-check the spelling before someone starts tattooing.
The post Why Friday the 13th Has Become Black Friday for Tattoo Shops appeared first on VICE.
