Want to survive longer in Escape From Tarkov? It’s EFT Roubles going to cost you a whole lot of Rubles. Although the game has recently added voice chat, there’s no denying that it’s money that still does most of the talking. From buying monstrously tough armoured rigs to shelling out for higher quality ammo, spending your in-game rubles and dollars gives you tangible benefits that make you much more likely to survive each raid. This translates to more exp, faster quest progress, and even more cash to throw straight back into even better gear.
But spending this cash is easier said than done – it can be hard to make money in Tarkov, especially when you’re a new player that’s still trying to learn the game. Even experienced players can struggle to keep their finances in check, as a particularly poor run of raids can wipe out any savings in a matter of hours.
For anyone wondering how to make more money in Escape From Tarkov, we’ve outlined seven of the best money-making tips to make your time in Tarkov as lucrative as possible.
Use your Scav whenever it’s off cooldown
As long as you’ve got space to store loot, going on a Scav run every time it’s available is perhaps the safest way to make money in Escape From Tarkov. While some players avoid playing Scavs because they don’t grant XP for your main character, they’re one of the best ways to play for anyone looking to shore up their funds on a budget.
Scavs spawn with their own set of gear, meaning that unlike a PMC, there’s no inherrent risk to playing them – you’re not risking any of your own stashed gear or cash when you spawn in as a Scav. This means that you’re free to loot around whichever map you’ve spawned in, and as long as you make it out, you’ll have made money even if you beat a hasty retreat without picking too much up.
However, for pulling in the real rubles, it’s worth taking a bit more of a risk and seeing what you can find as a Scav. Once you’ve loaded in, look around for any loot that’s been overlooked by PMCs. If you’re feeling especially brave, take a look at any high value loot spawns on the map: while it’s unlikely that you’ll find anything incredible if you’ve spawned in later on in the raid, it’s fairly common to find unlooted PMC bodies that are equipped with their own loadouts.
If you’re especially tight for cash, you can also use your Scav loadout to kit up your PMC for free. There’s a lot of perks to using your Scav whenever it’s off cooldown, so it’s always worth using them as much as possible.
Learn which maps are (and aren’t) worth looting。
As a new player, it can be tough to work out which maps give you the most incentive to visit. If you’re purely looking to make money, some maps have much more loot to find, but that comes with the risk of being a more attractive venture for more geared players.
As a general rule, Factory isn’t a good place to make money. Combat is too frequent and the map is too small to reliably get in and out safely, so there’s a level of unpredictability that makes venturing into Factory a dangerous affair. On top of that, outside of Tagilla there’s not even that much loot to find.
On the other hand, there are several maps that are nearly bursting at the seams with loot. Reserve and Interchange have lots of high-value spots spread across the map, while locations like Shoreline have much more centralized (and more contested) places filled with loot. As it stands, Lighthouse is one of the best maps for finding loot at the moment – but more on that later.
Learn where to find valuable loot
While the flashiest loot is often found in the most dangerous areas – think Kiba, Resort and the Water Treatment Plant – that doesn’t mean you can’t make plenty of money elsewhere.
There are a series of stashed containers hidden across most maps in Escape From Tarkov, and some seriously valuable goods can be found tucked away in them.
Even better, these stashes are typically much less dangerous than other areas of the map because they’re not always easy to find and lots of players don’t even know they exist. That being said, they can still be dangerous as you’ll not always be the only one running from stash to stash in search of sneaky loot.
For safer Stash runs, learning Woods is a good place to start. This map shows all of the stash locations on Woods, and for the most part they can be very neatly found while traversing the map to your extract. Even better, they’re almost all tucked Cheap EFT Roubles away from the map’s main areas of foot traffic, so if you pay attention to your surroundings, it’s a fairly safe place to loot.