What to write in a birthday card (with 30 examples)

The three-part formula

1. Greeting: Happy birthday, plus their name.
2. Something specific: a memory, an inside joke or a quality you admire.
3. A wish: what you hope their next year holds.

For a best friend

1. Happy birthday to the person who knows all my secrets and still likes me.
2. Another year of you being the funniest person in every room. Have the best day.
3. Thank you for every voice note, every 2am chat and every terrible idea we went through with.
4. Happy birthday! Same time next year, same table, same nonsense.
5. I'd choose you as my best friend in every lifetime.

For family

6. Happy birthday, Mum. Everything good in me started with you.
7. Happy birthday, Dad. Thanks for the lifts, the advice and the bad puns.
8. To my sister: thank you for being my first friend and my loudest supporter.
9. Happy birthday, little brother. When did you get taller than me?
10. Happy birthday, Gran. You make every year better.

For a partner

11. Happy birthday to my favourite person to do nothing with.
12. Every year with you is my favourite year. Happy birthday, love.
13. I'd still pick you, every single day.
14. Happy birthday. Let's do everything you want today, even the musical.
15. You make ordinary days feel like holidays.

For a colleague

16. Happy birthday! Thanks for making Mondays bearable.
17. Wishing you a brilliant day and a year of fewer meetings.
18. Happy birthday from all of us. Cake is in the kitchen.
19. Hope your day is as great as your spreadsheets.
20. Have a lovely birthday and a well-deserved day off.

Milestone birthdays (18, 21, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70+)

21. Happy 18th! The world is officially yours. Please be careful with it.
22. Happy 21st! Here's to the best decade yet.
23. Happy 30th. Your twenties were the warm-up.
24. Happy 40th! Wiser, calmer and somehow even more fun.
25. Happy 50th. Half a century of being brilliant.
26. Happy 60th! Here's to more adventures and fewer early mornings.
27. Happy 70th. Seventy years of making everyone around you happier.

Long-distance birthday messages

28. I wish I could sing this to you in person, so I recorded it instead.
29. The distance is temporary. Our friendship isn't. Happy birthday.
30. Celebrating you from miles away. First round's on me next time.

Say it, don't just write it

Message 28 works best out loud. A Wish birthday card plays Happy Birthday on a music box, then your voice note and photos, and lets the whole friend group add a message.