Amazon announces Prime Day dates: Everything you need to know

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UPDATE: Jun. 25, 2024, 12:00 p.m. EDT We’ve updated this story with new info about Amazon Prime Day 2024, including its dates and some details about a competing sale at Walmart.

Amazon Prime Day is turning 10 this year, and the members-only sale is poised to be a huge draw for sticker shock-weary shoppers on the hunt for summer deals. (Granted, not every deal is worth it.)

Here’s what you need to know about Amazon Prime Day 2024 — including some just-confirmed dates.

When is Prime Day 2024?

Amazon announced in a press release Tuesday that Prime Day will run from Tuesday, July 16 through Wednesday, July 17 in 2024. This lines up with its historical preference for early-week slots in mid-July, so it comes as little surprise. (For reference, Prime Day 2022 was live from Tuesday, July 12 through Wednesday, July 13, and Prime Day 2023 ran from Tuesday, June 11 through Wednesday, July 12.)

What is Prime Day?

Prime Day is an annual sitewide sale open to paid and trial members of Amazon’s Prime subscription service. First held in 2015 in honor of Amazon’s 20th anniversary (with mixed success), it was originally plugged as a “one-day-only event filled with more deals than Black Friday.” In the years since, it’s morphed into a 48-hour affair that’s preceded by weeks of preview offers. “Prime Day” is a misnomer at this point.

For the past two years, Amazon has hosted another major two-day sale for Prime members in October, teeing up its Black Friday festivities. (The 2022 version was called “Prime Early Access Sale,” and it was renamed to “Prime Big Deal Days” in 2023.) However, the summer iteration of Prime Day has remained Amazon’s flagship sale.

What to expect from Prime Day

Prime Day is Black Friday-coded in the sense that it’s prime time for finding unprecedented price drops that you wouldn’t see otherwise throughout the year. We can loosely predict what products will be on sale for Prime Day 2024 by looking back at last year’s hot items in categories like robot vacuums, headphones, and Amazon devices.

With the Kindle Paperwhite dropping below $100 in 2023, for example, we’d love to see our new favorite Kindle, the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, hit or beat its Black Friday price of $129.99. Between a smart mapping Roomba dropping below $200 and a j Series Roomba with small obstacle avoidance dropping below $300 (and staying there for much of spring 2024), a j Series Roomba scooting under the $250 point seems like the natural next step for the robot vacuum section.

If you’re eyeing Apple deals, Prime Day 2024 should be especially good for them. The past year has been packed with Apple events introducing new iPhones, MacBooks, and Apple Watches; Apple most recently announced a new iPad Air, iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro, and Magic Keyboard at its iPad-centric event on May 10. The mere existence of all this new gear could definitely trigger new record-low prices on all of the older versions of these devices, pushing Apple Watch 9 or 2023 MacBook discounts past their $100-ish plateaus.

Amazon devices themselves might have a similar story. Amazon device deals are always at the heart of Prime Day, but after a new version of almost every single Alexa-enabled device came out at the Amazon event in Sept. 2023, there are a ton of new Amazon devices ripe for the picking for Prime Day 2024. Cross your fingers for a $79.99 Echo Show 8, $49.99 Echo, or $199.99 Echo Frames.

If you’re A Chosen One, Amazon’s invite-only deals for Prime members are really where it’s at. October Prime Day’s selection was a doozy, offering 60% off two Fire TVs and 62% off Jabra earbuds and a Sony soundbar. During Prime Day in July 2023, the star of the invite-only section was a 43-inch Omni Fire TV rocking a 75% discount, bringing it below $100.

For Prime Day 2024, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the mega invite-only discount focus divert from the 43-inch to 55-inch range and focus on bigger models, like a 65-inch or 75-inch Fire TV from Hisense. Invite-only deals could be announced as early as June, as extra time is needed for shoppers to request and be granted access by the time Prime Day actually starts.

Can you shop on Prime Day without being a Prime member?

Not all Prime Day deals are officially tied to the sale, but to have access to the most possible savings, you will want to be a Prime member.

You can participate in Prime Day without committing to a paid Prime membership by scheduling a 30-day free trial around the event. Just remember to cancel it as soon as the sale is over to avoid getting charged.

Who’s competing with Prime Day?

At this point, it’s traditional for other major retailers to conveniently hold sales right before, during, and right after Prime Day.

Last year, that included Greatest Buy’s Black Friday in July sale which took place from July 10 to 12, Walmart+ Week from July 10 to 13, and Target Circle Week from July 9 to July 15. (As a reminder, last year’s Prime Day ran from July 11 to 12.) Both Walmart and Target just happened to hold big spring sale events around the time Amazon was running its Big Spring Sale, so we’re expecting no less competition-wise for the summer blowouts. Beyond expanded sale times, these retailers can offer better deals on certain categories like QLED TVs, high-end laptops, and home essentials.

So far, only Walmart has confirmed its plans for its summer sale. The big-box store will host an event called “Walmart Deals” online and on the Walmart app from Monday, July 8 through Thursday, July 11 — aka the week before Prime Day. The sale is being billed as Walmart’s “largest deals event ever,” and will feature five hours of early access for paid Walmart+ members before it opens to the public at 5 p.m. ET on the 8th. Here’s a preview of some of the greatest featured deals, per a press release: