FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COLUMBUS, Ohio, November 2, 2026. Nearly half of US adults surveyed by VRTO (Virtual Rent To Own) in August, 949 of 2,038 (46.6 percent), have used rent-to-own, either at a rental store or virtually, through a lease offered at a store or website checkout. One in six, 329 (16.1 percent), used it in the last year. Of the 949, 562 (59 percent) say they are very or somewhat likely to use it again, according to VRTO's Christmas 2026 buying guide, published today at vrto.com/research/christmas-2026-buying-guide.
Virtual rent-to-own is a large part of that use
Of the 949 who have used rent-to-own, 453 used a rental store such as Rent-A-Center (Upbound Group, NASDAQ: UPBD) or Aaron's (Katapult Holdings, NASDAQ: KPLT), 329 used a checkout option such as Acima (Upbound Group, NASDAQ: UPBD), Progressive Leasing (PROG Holdings, NYSE: PRG) or Katapult (Katapult Holdings, NASDAQ: KPLT), and 118 used both. Counting both groups, 447 adults, 21.9 percent of everyone surveyed, have signed a virtual rent-to-own agreement.
Christmas 2026
For Christmas 2026, 476 of the 2,038 (23.4 percent, or 27.1 percent of the 1,758 who plan to shop for the holidays) expect to finance part of their shopping through rent-to-own, virtual rent-to-own or buy-now-pay-later; 101 (5.0 percent) expect to use rent-to-own, and of those 52 plan to sign virtually at a checkout, 39 at a rental store, and 10 are not sure. For 101 people the range is roughly 10 points either way.
Gaming leads the plans. Of the 476, 118 named gaming as the category they are most likely to finance and 99 named TVs and home electronics, a gap within the survey's precision. The PlayStation 5 was the most-named single item, picked by 39 of the 118; TVs of 43 inches and up, counted across sizes, reach 83. Among the 101 rent-to-own planners the order changes: TVs first (25), then gaming (22), furniture (15) and phones and computers (15).
The items on the list cost more than last Christmas: Sony (NYSE: SONY) raised the PlayStation 5 to $649.99 in April, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) raised the Xbox Series X to $799.99 in August, and Nintendo (OTC: NTDOY) raised the Switch 2 to $499.99 in September. The guide also ranks the rent-to-own companies by Google search demand: Rent-A-Center (Upbound Group, NASDAQ: UPBD) is searched more than every virtual lessor combined, and searches for the virtual names, Progressive Leasing (PROG Holdings, NYSE: PRG), Katapult (Katapult Holdings, NASDAQ: KPLT) and Afterpay (Block, NYSE: XYZ) among them, peak in December.
The companies shoppers name
Asked which company they would choose first, 29 of the 476 named Rent-A-Center (Upbound Group, NASDAQ: UPBD), ahead of Katapult (Katapult Holdings, NASDAQ: KPLT) with 15, Aaron's (Katapult Holdings, NASDAQ: KPLT) with 9, American First Finance (FirstCash, NASDAQ: FCFS) with 9, Acima (Upbound Group, NASDAQ: UPBD) with 7 and Progressive Leasing (PROG Holdings, NYSE: PRG) with 6. The buy-now-pay-later names led overall: PayPal Pay in 4 (PayPal Holdings, NASDAQ: PYPL) with 114 and Affirm (Affirm Holdings, NASDAQ: AFRM) with 106.
Spending plans are mostly flat. Of 1,669 holiday shoppers who answered, 47.7 percent expect to spend about the same as last year, 26.3 percent more and 25.3 percent less. Rent-to-own planners most often expect a weekly payment of $20 to $49 (62 of 101); buy-now-pay-later planners, whose named providers were PayPal Pay in 4 (PayPal Holdings, NASDAQ: PYPL), Affirm (Affirm Holdings, NASDAQ: AFRM), Klarna (Klarna Group, NYSE: KLAR) and Afterpay (Block, NYSE: XYZ), most often expect an item costing $500 to $999 (125 of 375).
VRTO's guidance to shoppers: wherever the agreement is signed, ask for the total cost to own and compare it with the cash price. At a checkout, the agreement is with the leasing company, not the store.
How the survey was done
VRTO commissioned and paid for the survey of 2,038 US adults, drawn from an opt-in online panel (Prolific) and fielded August 22, 2026. Results are unweighted and describe the people who answered. The sample is the same order of size as the 2025 holiday surveys from Bankrate (2,567), NerdWallet and Harris (2,083) and LendingTree (2,032); the 949 respondents with rent-to-own experience are about 1.8 times the 532 customers in the Federal Trade Commission's 2000 rent-to-own survey. Questionnaire, method, tables and the anonymized respondent file, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: vrto.com/research/christmas-2026-buying-guide/data.
Companies referenced in this report: Affirm Holdings (NASDAQ: AFRM), Block (NYSE: XYZ), owner of Afterpay, FirstCash Holdings (NASDAQ: FCFS), owner of American First Finance, Katapult Holdings (NASDAQ: KPLT), Klarna Group (NYSE: KLAR), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Nintendo (OTC: NTDOY), PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL), PROG Holdings (NYSE: PRG), Sony Group (NYSE: SONY), Upbound Group (NASDAQ: UPBD). VRTO is not affiliated with any of them.
About VRTO
VRTO (vrto.com) is the home of rent-to-own: a national directory and reference covering rent-to-own stores across all 50 states, with the terms and consumer rules behind them, published with the dealer named and the date stated. VRTO is not a lender or a dealer. Listings and rankings are never paid for. VRTO is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.
Media contact
VRTO, [email protected]
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