Depending on the speaker’s positionality, international aid relations have tended to be described in the language of either contracts or entitlements. The new aid modalities of budget support and donor harmonisation appear to reinforce efforts by donor and recipient governments to understand aid in one of these two ways. However, conceptualising aid as a gift can illuminate the operations of power. It helps us understand what may be actually happening as distinct from what people say they are doing. This argument is supported through a case study from the author’s experience in Bolivia to show how the power of the gift can be played out in the social practices relating to a programme of budgetary support. The article concludes by suggesting that explicitly designing aid instruments as gifts might make aid more effective in promoting a social justice agenda than do current aid modalities.