KFC is not giving away free buckets to celebrate ‘National Chicken Wing Day’

Posts shared hundreds of times on Facebook claim the fast food chain KFC is “honoring National Chicken Wing Day” by offering free 12 piece buckets to people who like the posts.

But this isn’t true. KFC confirmed to Full Fact that these are not genuine offers from the franchise.

One post says: “Breaking, honoring National Chicken Wing day by treating every like to a free 12 piece bucket at any KFC”, and features an image of two women wearing KFC branded aprons and holding KFC branded buckets. Underneath the photo is what appears to be a voucher—a bar code alongside the KFC logo and text that says: “#NationalChickenWingDay FREE 12 piece chicken bucket”.

Another post claims: “BREAKING! Honoring National Chicken Wing day by treating everyone who says 'Bucket' to a free bucket at any KFC”. This post features an image that also resembles a voucher, but it includes a QR code and has an apparent code number on it, as well as the text “Valid at any KFC”. Other posts feature very similar wording and the same images.

‘National Chicken Wing Day’ reportedly originated in the US city of Buffalo. It takes place on 29 July—but the posts above were all published in August and September.

The official UK KFC Facebook page hasn’t posted about this day since 2019, and we couldn’t find the offer on this account, any of the chain’s other social media channels or KFC’s UK website.

We’ve previously fact checked similar posts on Facebook offering fake deals from other restaurants including Wetherspoons and Toby Carvery.

It is always worth checking posts sharing offers that seem too good to be true. One way to verify whether an offer is real is to see whether it has been shared by the company’s official page. This will often have more followers, a verified blue tick on platforms like Facebook or Instagram, and a longer post history.