Escape from Tarkov: How To Make Money Fast

Escape from Tarkov is filled with valuable items, expensive loadouts, and hidden stashes, making it easy for players to profit once they have the knowledge. However, players that struggle to turn a profit scuffle throughout the wipe, resorting to scav runs and their outdated keys. 

This guide will teach you the best methods for making quick money on Escape from Tarkov to help fuel those expensive raids and The Lab keycards. An important feature to note, no expensive keys or loadouts will be required within this guide. You'll be able to run a backpack, cheap armor, and possibly a cheap weapon, like a pistol. If you've completely run out of money, you'll be able to complete this with nothing, just stay out of sight and be quick on your feet.

1. Making Money Fast In Escape from Tarkov

To make fast money, you're going to want to run the map Customs within Escape from Tarkov, the reason being that finding a raid will be quick, loading in and repeating the process never takes long. Players are able to rinse and repeat quickly, raising turnaround on how much money you can make per hour of your time. 

Regardless of where you spawn, you're going to want to run to Medical, Fortress, and Old Gas Station, looting everything in sight. Just be careful there are scavs around.

Here is what you'll find in these locations:

• Medical loot
• High-tier weapon attachments 
• Loose valuable loot - GP Coins, Gold Chains, Combat Stimulants 
• Violet Keycard spawn (Old Gas Station around fence by cylinder block)
• Weapons 
• Intelligence folder (Medical Libary on bookshelves or the floor)

Please operate with care, these locations are high-traffic scav locations and the scav bosses Big Pipe, Birdeye, and Knight can spawn outside and around medical at a 25% spawn chance. 

Once grabbing all the loot, quickly extract through RUAF Roadblock or ZB-1012/ZB-1011 for a quick exit. If you are running raids without weapons, be patient and stay away from gunshots otherwise you'll likely die. Keep in mind - PM and two magazines are only 10k roubles. 

2. Find Hidden Stashes on Customs

Customs contains over fifteen different "hidden stashes" around the map, these stashes are either barrels or wooden grassy covers that are found across the Customs map. These hidden stashes contain rare to useless loot, often containing around 20k roubles on average per hidden stash. However, it's not rare to receive loot worth 100k roubles or more in a hidden stash. 

Again, Customs is probably the easiest map to run when trying to make money quickly, due to the turnaround time of each raid. Most players are familiar with Customs and the layout of the map, overall improving survival rate and profitability. Hidden stashes are located all over the map and contain items like the following:

• Bitcoins
• Labs entry card
• BNTI Zhuk-61 body armor
• Pack of screws 
• Soap
• Bolts 
• FN P90 5.7x28 submachine gun 

As you can clearly notice, there is a wide plethora of items you can obtain, ranging from random useless loot like soap to death machines like submachine guns. From personal experience, when running 75% of stashes with a large backpack and vest, I often finish the raid with 300-400k roubles worth of loot. The runs take approximately ten to fifteen minutes depending on engaging with enemy players or not; preferably keep your head down and continue looting to ensure max profit for your time. 

3. Play Scav Runs on Customs

If you're incredibly down bad, regrettably, scavenger runs will be the way forward. The advantage of playing as a scav is the comradeship you have with fellow AI scavengers, they'll often greet and support you throughout your travels. Therefore, you have significantly fewer enemies to worry about. However, you will spawn in-raid once most loot has been taken by other enemies. 

When playing as a scav, you can be more courageous because the gear technically isn't yours, unless, your scav spawns with a high-value item. Ensure you play Customs, most players only play Customs to PVP meaning there's a high possibility of unlooted dead bodies.

Here are a few tips when playing as a scav on Customs:

• Check for dead bodies around high-traffic locations - dorms, construction, and fortress
• Locked doors may now be opened - marked room, customs manager key, dorm rooms
• Don't kill other scavs unless they engage you first
• Check as many hidden stashes as possible, friendly scavs will mostly be nearby 
• Scav bosses will engage you, stay away from them unless dead or dead players nearby
• Always check your scav inventory when spawning - could spawn with a high-value item
• Know your extracts as a scav as they are mostly different from PMC extracts

It's important to keep high "Scav Karma," you can check your current Karma through Fence on his reputation in the merchant's menu. Killing other AI scavs and player scavs will reflect negatively on you, lowering your scav karma. A low scav karma means it takes longer for your scav to "regenerate" after usage, you'll spawn with worse equipment and enemy scavs will automatically attack you. A high scav karma will spawn you with better equipment, and loot and regenerate your scav significantly quicker for use again. 

4. Play Reserve And Head For The Best Loot Locations 

It would be unfair not to mention another alternative to Customs, therefore the Reserve map is going to be the best runners-up option for all players. Whether you're new or experienced, learn this map and appreciate the loot that lies within. 

In this method you're going to want the following items:

• Unarmored/armored chest rig - 12 slots or more
• Armor/no armor
• Pistol - 1/2 spare magazines 
• No helmet 
• No backpack
• Grenades are optional 
• Medical items in the container 

These are the necessary items for a stereotypical Reserve pistol run, giving you the option between armor and unarmored loadouts. Depending on your choice of armor is how careful you're going to need to be due to the high volume of scavs and players on this map.

Within these runs loot the following areas (correlating with the map above - buildings are identified through chess pieces as seen)

• Loot black bishop building - drop-down room filled with PC components 
• Loot white queen building - ground floor filled with PC components
• Loot white bishop building - ground and top floors contain medical equipment 
• Loot black knight building - ground and top floors contain weapon and loose equipment
• Quickly extract through the manhole marked "M" on the map

If you follow this quick and easy guide, looting each building fast and confidently, you'll extract 300k worth of gear minimum stashed into your vest. For those wondering, the reason you cannot wear a backpack is because manhole doesn't allow extraction whilst wearing a backpack.

For more Escape From Tarkov news, be sure to check out our dedicated section or take a look at some of our Guides & Tutorials just below: