27% of Americans Have Stolen Something at Self-Checkout

More than a quarter of Americans admit to having stolen something at a self-checkout register. In a survey carried out by LendingTree in October of 2025, 27 percent said they had ever intentionally taken an item at a self-checkout without paying. More than a third of respondents said they had unintentionally taken something without scanning it.

Members of Gen Z as well as Millennials are most likely to have stolen something intentionally, at between 37 percent and 41 percent admitting to it as part of the survey. Gen X members and Baby Boomers are much less likely to say they swiped something from the store.

A study by retail technology company Grabango recently found that self-checkout registers cost stores on average 3.5 percent of sales. Despite the low number, this still translates to millions of dollars for larger retailers, prompting many of them to take action against self-checkout theft. Of course, retailers are also saving personnel costs when deploying self-checkout terminals.

Difficulty affording the items in question and price increases are the most cited reasons, given by almost half of those who stole something at self-checkout for each case. This is followed, at 39 percent, by prices feeling unfair or too high in general and, at 35 percent, by self-checkout feeling like a task customers should reimburse themselves for. 29 percent find that the harm seems minimal at larger stores, while 21 percent say the chance of being caught is low and between 14 percent and 17 percent say negative experiences at the store in question made them justify the behavior. 13 percent say they started by copying friends and family. The survey also found that men were twice as likely as women to admit to self-checkout theft.