If you’ve come across headlines like “Gen Z can’t afford a first date” and wondered whether that’s an exaggeration or a real, data-backed trend, the short answer is: it’s real, and it has a name — Date-flation. This report traces the claim back to its original sources, checks the numbers against multiple independent surveys, and lays out exactly why romance has quietly become one of the more expensive line items in a young American’s monthly budget.
The claim did not originate from a single dramatic headline. It’s the product of at least two separate, credible financial-industry surveys — one from BMO Financial Group and one from Bank of America — both published in 2026, and both picked up and amplified by outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, CNBC, and MarketWatch. Below, we walk through exactly what each report found, who said what, and how the story of “Date-flation” has been unfolding across the U.S. — and even in Korea.
Where the “Gen Z Can’t Afford Dating” Claim Actually Comes From
The term Date-flation was coined by BMO in its Real Financial Progress Index, a recurring consumer survey published by the Bank of Montreal’s U.S. financial group. In a report released on February 11, 2026 — timed just ahead of Valentine’s Day — BMO announced that the average “all-in” cost of a date in America had climbed to $189, up 12.5% from $168 the year before. That “all-in” figure includes not just dinner or drinks, but also pre-date grooming and transportation costs. Over the course of a year, BMO found, active daters spent an average of $2,323 on dating alone.
The Wall Street Journal picked up this data and ran a feature specifically framing it around Gen Z’s changing dating habits, which is likely the direct source of headlines resembling “Z세대는 첫 데이트 비용 감당할 수 없다” (“Gen Z can’t afford the cost of a first date”). According to the WSJ’s reporting on the BMO data, 50% of Gen Z respondents and 40% of millennials said dating costs are now interfering with their broader financial goals, like saving or paying down debt.
A second, separate data point reinforces the same narrative: Bank of America’s Better Money Habits report, which surveyed 915 Gen Z adults in the U.S. and found that 53% of them spent $0 per month on dating, while another third spent less than $100 a month. In other words, over half of Gen Z is opting out of dating-related spending almost entirely — which is arguably an even more dramatic illustration of the Date-flation phenomenon than the $189-per-date figure.
So while no single article uses the exact Korean phrasing quoted in the question, the underlying claim — that economic pressure is making dating financially unaffordable for young Americans — is well documented across at least four to five independent, named surveys and reputable financial outlets.
Date-flation by the Numbers: The BMO Real Financial Progress Index
Let’s look closer at the mechanics of Date-flation, because the headline number ($189) tells only part of the story.
- The average U.S. date now costs $189, up from $168 a year prior — a 12.5% year-over-year jump that significantly outpaces general U.S. inflation, which sat around 2.7%–3.8% over the same period, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited alongside the BMO report.
- Generational breakdown matters. Millennials reported spending the most per date at $252 on average (a 32% jump from the year before), while Gen Z reported spending $205, up from $194. Despite spending slightly less in raw dollars than millennials, Gen Z is hit hardest relative to income, since they are earlier in their careers and typically carry more student debt.
- A “K-shaped” dating economy is emerging. Paul Dilda, BMO’s head of U.S. consumer strategy, used this term to describe how the dating economy is splitting in two directions: the share of singles spending $300 or more per date rose to 14% (up from 11%), while the share spending nothing at all also rose to 14%. In short, dating is polarizing — some are spending more, some are spending nothing, and the financially cautious middle ground is shrinking.
- Frequency is dropping too. The average number of dates per year fell from about 14 in 2025 to roughly 12 in 2026, and nearly half of single Americans (47%) told BMO that dating “is no longer financially worth it.”
A separate April 2026 survey by JG Wentworth found that 86% of U.S. singles said money concerns had forced them to either delay dating or take a break from the dating pool entirely — a striking confirmation of the same Date-flation trend from an entirely different source.
Bank of America: More Than Half of Gen Z Spends Zero on Dating
If BMO’s report shows how expensive dating has gotten, Bank of America’s Better Money Habits report shows how Gen Z is responding — by simply not spending.
Key findings from BofA’s survey of 915 Gen Z adults:
- 53% spent $0 a month on dating.
- A third spent less than $100 a month.
- The pattern was nearly identical across genders, suggesting this isn’t just a “men footing the bill” story — both men and women in Gen Z are pulling back.
- Separately, BofA found that 65% of daters said inflation has impacted their dating life, about a quarter said they were actively trying to spend less on dates, and one in five said they were going on fewer dates specifically to save money.
A BofA spokesperson framed the shift as Gen Z choosing to “date with purpose” — favoring intentional, meaningful connection over the more casual, financially loose dating culture of previous years. This also helps explain why dating apps like Tinder and Bumble have struggled to retain younger users, even as those same apps roll out AI-powered features (like Hinge’s “Prompt Feedback” tool) specifically designed to keep Gen Z engaged.
Real Stories Behind the Date-flation Headlines
Numbers alone don’t capture how personal this shift feels for the people living it. A few anecdotes from the reporting stand out:
Winston Jules, 26, Brooklyn. A medical receptionist who lives with his mother and helps pay rent, Jules told The Wall Street Journal that a year ago, his dates typically involved nice restaurants and $20 cocktails in New York City. Now, he opts for a picnic in Prospect Park or a walk followed by ice cream. “I’ve kind of been sacrificing being social lately just to be financially stable,” he said — a quote that has been widely cited as one of the more human illustrations of Date-flation in action.
Michelle Kaye, OkCupid’s director of brand marketing. She told reporters that Gen Z increasingly “dates with purpose,” prioritizing compatibility and shared values over flashy spending, and that she frequently sees Gen Z users who feel they simply cannot date because of debt or low wages — a direct echo of the “can’t afford to date” framing.
Will Sineiro, a Bank of America financial center leader, described the anxieties driving this behavior bluntly: young clients are “worried about grocery prices, worried about rent, worried about eating out” — dating, in other words, is just one more expense competing with the basics.
Meanwhile, dating apps themselves are adapting to Date-flation. Hinge — whose user base is about half Gen Z — analyzed its own date-idea recommendation data and found that low-cost activities like coffee, park walks, board games, and stargazing are now the most popular suggestions clicked by users, a clear behavioral fingerprint of budget-conscious dating.
Is Date-flation a Uniquely American Problem? A Look at Korea
Interestingly, similar dating-cost anxiety is showing up outside the U.S. as well. A Korean survey conducted by Enrise, the operator of the dating app Wippy, polled 1,485 men and women in their 20s and 30s and found that about 70% said dating costs had increased noticeably over the past one to two years. In response, the most common coping strategy was spending more time at home instead of going out, followed by simply reducing the number of dates altogether — a domestic parallel to the same Date-flation pattern documented in the U.S.
This suggests Date-flation isn’t purely an American phenomenon tied to one country’s inflation cycle — it may reflect a broader, cross-border shift in how younger generations, squeezed by housing costs, student debt, and stagnant early-career wages, are recalibrating what they can afford to spend on romance.
Why Date-flation Is Outpacing Regular Inflation
It’s worth asking: why would dating costs rise faster than overall inflation? A few structural factors help explain it:
- Dating now bundles several inflating categories at once — restaurant dining, transportation/rideshare pricing, and “grooming” expenses (haircuts, clothing, skincare) have all seen above-average price growth in recent years.
- Housing and debt are squeezing discretionary income. U.S. home prices, tracked by the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, have nearly doubled over the past decade, while four-year public university tuition rose 36.7% between 2010 and 2023, according to education-data trackers. That leaves less disposable income for discretionary spending like dating, even before dating-specific costs rise.
- Social norms around who pays are shifting slower than the economics. BMO found that 75% of male respondents still expect to cover the full cost of an early-stage date, meaning the financial burden of Date-flation isn’t spread evenly, even as both genders report cutting back overall.
What Date-flation Means for the Future of Romance
Taken together, the evidence supports the core claim behind the “Gen Z can’t afford dating” headlines — though it’s more precise to describe it as Gen Z increasingly choosing not to spend on dating, rather than a literal inability to go on a date at all. Whether it’s BMO’s $189 average date, BofA’s finding that over half of Gen Z spends nothing monthly on dating, or the Korean Wippy survey’s 70% who feel the pinch, the pattern across every data source points the same direction: romance is being recalibrated by economics, not replaced by it. Gen Z is still dating — just doing it in parks, over coffee, and increasingly, with a spreadsheet mentality that previous generations rarely applied to their love lives.
