So you've decided to dive back into GTA Online now that the GTA 5 Enhanced edition is here—or maybe it's your first time in Los Santos. Either way you'll need a quick rundown on how to make money in GTA Online to keep up with your soon-to-be lavish lifestyle. If there's a fancy apartment you've been eyeing up, or an aircraft hangar—or you want a new set of wheels—we can help ease your GTA 5 woes.
GTA 6: Everything we know
GTA 6 cars: The lineup
GTA 5 cheats: Phone it in
GTA 5 mods: All the best antics
Fastest GTA Online cars: Revved up
Make money in GTA Online: $$$
Generally, the fastest ways to make money in GTA Online need some seed capital to get started—I'm looking at you, Cayo Perico. But while the most profitable ventures in Los Santos require an investment up front, or in the case of the aforementioned heist, an expensive nuclear-powered submarine, there are plenty of faster ways to start racking up the cash to help get you there.
Heists are one of the best ways to make money in GTA Online, but even those need some investment, namely, an apartment with a heist room. Sure, investing your money in favour of spending your cash as soon as you earn it might sound a little too sensible but if you can rein in those urges in the short term, you'll eventually have more money than you know what to do with.
Down below I'll outline the different ways you can make money in GTA Online, as well as some of the more investment-heavy, long-term methods to build up your riches.
How to make money in GTA Online
Before diving into the various categories below, here are some quick tips to help you build up your bank balance initially:
- Start by doing the special scavenger hunts that are available in free mode—Bounty Targets for Maude, the revolver Treasure Hunt and Los Santos Slasher—for a total of $250,00 each.
- In a similar vein, complete the Movie Props and Signal Jammers collectible missions to net $150,000 each.
- Spin the Casino Lucky Wheel daily for the chance at extra income in the form of cash or chips (which can be converted to cash).
- Pay attention to double and triple money game modes each week and participate in them, alongside doing missions that are available to you, until you get $2.2 mil.
- Buy the Kosatka and work your way through the Cayo Perico heist.
- Things will be slow at first, but once you’ve done your first heist you’ll be able to buy better weapons and vehicles to make things quicker—prioritise the Sparrow helicopter for the Kosatka.
- From this point on it’s a continuous cycle of doing the Cayo Perico heist quicker and quicker, improving your skills and buying items that will allow you to do it even faster, until you’re making approximately $1.5 mil an hour. Then you can enjoy the rest of the game and supplement your money making methods with the others outlined here.
- If you don't enjoy heists or you want something a little more passive, consider the Acid Lab—available once you've completed the six First Dose missions. You'll find more details below.
Heists
Cayo Perico
- Potential profit: $1.2 mil per hour
- Prerequisites: Kosatka submarine (min cost: $2.2 mil) & organisation member (VIP/CEO)
Method: Go to the Music Locker at the casino and meet with Miguel Madrazo. Afterwards you’ll be able to purchase the Kosatka Submarine. Start an organisation as a VIP or CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu, then go to your Kosatka and start the heist from the planning board. You’ll need to gather intel on the island, complete some prep missions, and finally do the heist itself. From starting the intel to finishing the heist should take around 45 minutes to an hour after a few times trying it—as long as you focus only on what is needed. Given its popularity and profitability, there are numerous written and video guides online that can help.
Tip: Unlike other heists, everything can be done solo and in a private lobby. Most of the time it’s also more profitable to do it solo, and the potential profits per hour dwarf every other money making method in the game. Make sure to start your next heist within 48 minutes of ending your last one to have it be set on hard mode and earn a 10% bonus.
Cluckin' Bell Farm Raid
- Potential profit: $500k per hour (you'll get an additional $250k for your first time)
- Prerequisites: Speak to Vincent Effenburger at Vespucci Police Station
Method: Make sure you're in the open world, rather than inside a business, then wait for a call from Vincent Effenburger. He'll tell you he'd like to discuss a job with you, so head to Vespucci Police Station—you should see a 'V' on your map to mark the location. Once you've met up with Vincent, there's a bit of preparation to do, including a number of set-up missions to secure the necessary equipment, as well as gather intel before you start. It should take around 50 minutes to an hour to complete, from beginning the prep to finishing the job.
Tip: Like Cayo Perico, everything can be done solo. It may take a few tries to learn the ropes and get your time down but with a 60-minute cooldown, it's a pretty solid way to get cash if you're burned out on Cayo.
Diamond Casino
- Potential profit: $500k per hour
- Prerequisites: Arcade (Min Cost: $1.2 mil), organisation member (VIP/CEO), & 1-3 Friends
Method: After buying the Arcade, complete the mandatory setup missions. Then start an organisation as a VIP or CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu and start the heist from the planning board within your Arcade. You’ll need to scope out the Casino and find out what you’ll be stealing from the vault. You’ll then need to choose your approach out of three options and do the relevant prep missions, before completing the heist itself with between one and three friends. Depending on your approach there are certain prep missions you can skip entirely and some that will be extremely helpful to do, and there are plenty of guides online to help you figure it all out.
Tip: Completing the heist with the minimum number of people required to get all the loot is usually the most profitable. For art that’s two people, but the rest are three. Big Con is the easiest approach as you can get in and out without any trouble. Aim to steal a helicopter or go into nearby tunnels to avoid cops more easily and quickly when escaping.
Doomsday
- Potential profit: $500k per hour
- Prerequisites: Facility (minimum Cost: $1.25 mil) & 1-3 friends
Method: Walk to the heist planning room in your facility and select your chosen heist act to start. You will need to pay an upfront cost to start the heist as host. Invite one, two, or three friends and work through the prep missions, setup missions and finale. As with the old heists, round up a group of decent players because communication and skill is needed to reduce the time taken to beat it.
Tip: Completing these heists with two players rather than four will naturally mean more money per player, as the overall payout remains the same, but the missions will be slightly more difficult and potentially more time consuming with fewer players. The host of any heist doesn’t make any money during setup missions and has to spend money to start each, so it's a good idea for the host to take 40% for four players, 50% for three players or 60% for two players of the final heist earnings. Other players take an equal share of what remains, so that all players will earn approximately the same overall. Paying to skip prep missions is almost always never worth it from a monetary or time perspective.
Active businesses
Special Cargo
- Potential profits: $500k per hour
- Prerequisites: Office (minimum cost: $1 mil), warehouse (minimum cost: $250k) & organisation member (CEO)
Method: Ignore the old method of actually manually sourcing cargo for this. With the Criminal Enterprises update each warehouse now has staff and it is significantly more efficient to get them to source cargo for you. Simply walk up to them inside the warehouse and pay them to source cargo until the warehouse is full. They’ll collect between 1 and 3 crates and you’ll have to wait 48 minutes in real time—although you can turn off your console and the timer will still count down—before you can get them to source more. You can then use the laptop in the warehouse to sell your collected crates via a delivery mission to turn a profit.
Tip: The more crates you sell at once the more money you'll make per crate, hence a full large warehouse is the best to build up and sell. However large warehouses cost more to purchase and selling 111 crates at once is a larger risk as you'll either gain $2.2 million or lose everything. In promotional weeks where special cargo is double money, alongside the 50% high-demand bonus for selling in a full public session, the maximum potential income is $6.6 million from one delivery mission. That’s a very high risk scenario though, so be careful.
Agency VIP Contract
- Potential profit: $300k per hour
- Prerequisites: Agency (Min Cost: $2 mil) & Organisation Member (VIP/CEO)
Method: Start an organisation as a VIP or CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu. Walk to the computer in your agency office and select 'VIP Contract'. This can be done after completing a single 'Security Contract'. Simply play through the story-style missions (three parts lasting approximately an hour each) to net a $1 million reward on completion.
Tip: Playing through the missions for the first time also yields bonuses. For example, an extra few hundred thousand dollars for reaching certain points. While the missions may not be worth doing consistently in comparison to heists from a money-making perspective, they're fun enough to recommend.
Auto Shop
- Potential profit: $300k per hour
- Prerequisites: Auto Shop (min cost: $1.7m) & Organisation Member (VIP/CEO)
Method: Go to the LS Car Meet first in order to be able to buy an Auto Shop from the in-game website. Start an organisation as a VIP or CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu. Walk to the Job Board in order to access Contracts, which are essentially mini-heists. Complete the two relatively short setup missions and then the finale to net the pay-out of approximately 170-180k each time.
Tip: Other business aspects of the Auto Shop include modifying and delivering customer cars, and finding exotic cars in free mode random events to export. Neither of these are very profitable considering the time investment involved, so it's not recommended to buy the additional items for the Auto Shop that help with them (Car Lift & Staff Members) as it will take a long time to earn that money back.
Passive businesses
Acid Lab
- Potential profit: $60k per hour (with the upgrade and if you buy supplies)
- Prerequisites: Acid Lab ($750k), equipment upgrade ($250k)
Method: To set up the Acid Lab you will first have to first complete the First Dose story missions which are available as soon as you receive a call from Ron—look for the 'R' on the map for his location. "Welcome to the Troupe" is the first of six missions you'll need to complete and after finishing the last one, you'll steal a Brickade 6x6. After a brief forklift mission, return to the Freak Shop with the goods and speak to Mutt to grab the Acid Lab upgrade ($750k) for the Brickade.
To get the extra equipment upgrade for $250k, which increases your profits substantially, you'll need to complete 10 Fooligan missions from Dax. However, the monetary reward you get for completing them means you'll more than cover the upgrade cost.
As with other similar passive businesses, you can either steal or buy your supplies but it's generally always more time-efficient to just buy them. It will cost you $60k which you can do by talking to Mutt in person or on the phone.
Tip: You can get an extra 5% bonus by changing the name of your product and you can double your production speed for 30 minutes by interacting with the production bench (limited to once per day) which increases your profits even more.
Nightclub: Safe
- Potential profit: $50k per hour passively (whilst doing other things)
- Prerequisites: Nightclub (Min Cost: $1.1 mil), Staff Upgrade ($475,000) & 2 DJs
Method: This extra income takes advantage of the increased Nightclub popularity earnings and safe capacity of $250,000. All you need to do is keep your nightclub’s popularity meter above 90%, with the best way to do that provided in the tip below. Every 48 minutes (1 in-game day) money will be transferred to your safe and the nightclub’s popularity will drop by 5% if you have the staff upgrade. When the popularity is at 100% or 95%, $50,000 will be added to the safe, with the amount of money added decreasing substantially from this point on as popularity drops. Simply keep your popularity high and empty your safe every four or five in-game days for guaranteed low effort income.
Tip: You’ll get $50,000 added to your nightclub’s safe as long as your popularity is at 100% or 95%. This means you only need to worry about increasing your popularity every two in-game days once it has dropped to 90%. Every time you switch DJs from the computer in your nightclub building VIP area you automatically gain 10% popularity, putting you back up to 100%. Since this costs $10,000, you’ll be making $90,000 profit every two in-game days by simply clicking a button on an in-game computer. You can also do the popularity missions, but they’ll take up to 10 minutes in comparison to the seconds required to switch DJs, thereby reducing money making efficiency.
Nightclub: Business
- Potential profit: $40k per hour passively (whilst doing other things)
- Prerequisites: Nightclub (minimum cost: $1.1 mil) & other businesses (minimum cost: $850k)
Method: Walk to the computer in your nightclub building VIP area and select "Warehouse Management", then assign a Warehouse Technician to one of the goods you have available. Those goods will be based on the other businesses you own, such as motorcycle club businesses, a gunrunning bunker, or a cargo warehouse.
You can assign up to five technicians, meaning only five of your other businesses will count. Once assigned, your technicians will begin acquiring goods on their own when you're doing most other things in the game. You can then use the computer in your nightclub building VIP area to sell your goods via a delivery mission to turn a profit.
Tip: The business aspect of the nightclub may not seem profitable, but in a 24-hour AFK scenario it gives around $900,000 profit every day for a single ten-minute mission (which equates to an income rate of over $5 million per hour of actual work, beating everything else in the game). Since this is completely passive income where you don’t need to keep restocking, and there's no monetary bonus for selling full stock, it's actually more efficient to sell earlier. To reach maximum profitability, ignore Organic Produce & Printing and Copying, and assign technicians to the other five areas. Then sell goods every time Cash Creation, Pharmaceuticals & South American Imports are full (every 20 hours).
Gunrunning
- Potential profit: $45k per hour passively (while doing other things)
- Prerequisites: Bunker (minimum cost: $1.2 mil) and organisation member (VIP/CEO)
Method: Start an organisation as a VIP or CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu. Walk to the laptop in your bunker and select "Resupply", then "Steal Supplies" or "Buy Supplies". You will need to complete a mission to deliver the supplies to your bunker if you choose that option, or they can be delivered without any effort if you buy them. Once you have supplies your staff will begin manufacturing, turning them into stock when you're doing most other things in the game. You can then use the laptop in the bunker to sell your stock via a delivery mission to turn a profit.
Tip: Buying supplies is more time effective, as is setting your staff to only manufacturing and buying the equipment/staff upgrades. This is passive income so you should have this running in the background while you make active income from other methods listed. There is no monetary bonus for selling a full bunker, and doing so will require friends if there are multiple vehicles to be used for the sell mission.
Agency Security Contracts
- Potential profit: $25k per hour passively (while doing other things)
- Prerequisites: Agency (Min Cost: $2 mil) & Organisation Member (VIP/CEO)
Method: Start an organisation as a VIP or CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu. Walk to the computer in your agency office and select 'Security Contract'. Choose one and complete the mission for a small reward. Every five Security Contracts completed increases the amount of money added to the wall safe every in-game day (48 minutes) to the tune of $500, up to a maximum of $20,000 for completing 200 jobs. Simply empty the safe as it nears its maximum ($250,000) and continue completing Security Contracts to permanently increase the rate at which the safe fills up.
Tip: The safe will fill up every 12.5 hours after 200 security contracts have been completed. In a 24-hour AFK scenario, 85 security contracts would need to be completed for the wall safe to be full by the same time the next day after being emptied.
Other jobs
VIP Work
- Potential profit: $150k per hour
- Prerequisites: Organisation member (VIP/CEO)
Method: Start an organisation as a VIP or CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu. Open up the interaction menu and select "VIP Work", then the mission you want to do. You will need to complete a mission in free roam and will be rewarded with money upon successful completion.
Tip: These missions are a great way to earn some money while waiting for cooldown timers to expire, such as if you're waiting to source another vehicle for your warehouse, as they are completed fairly quickly and pay relatively well. They aren't a replacement for other money making methods, though, as their payout isn't as high, but they're solid filler jobs. Headhunter, Hostile Takeover and Sightseer are notably decent missions to take on.
Premium races
- Potential profit: $80k per race
- Prerequisites: A fast car/bike, good racing ability
Method: Either drive to the location of the premium race, which is a golden stunt wheel on the map, or hover over it and start the job from the map. When the lobby has filled with eight other players, you'll have $20k taken from your bank account. You must finish third or above to make a return on that investment, with the winner of the race receiving $100k, second place taking home $30k, and third place getting their entry fee of $20k back.
Tip: Premium races change every week and are a gamble, as it can take time to fill up a lobby and there is no guarantee you'll make money. If you're proficient at racing, however, are familiar with the stunt race on offer that week and have a good car (if you don't already know beforehand which car to use then you're not ready for the premium race), this can be quite lucrative.
Time Trials
- Potential profit: $100k per time trial
- Prerequisites: A fast car/bike or RC Bandito
Method: Drive to the location of the time trial corona, which is a purple stopwatch icon on the map. Start the time trail when you feel ready and attempt to get to the end point quicker than the listed par time. There are no checkpoints in between so you can take whatever route you like, and there are numerous guides online for each trial. You'll be rewarded with around $100k for successful completion.
Tip: Time trials change weekly and you can only gain the reward for completing them once per week. You do have an unlimited number of tries to beat the par time and can respawn back at the start, but of course the longer it takes the less money you effectively make per hour from this method. In general, pulling wheelies on a fast bike will get you to your destination in the quickest way possible. There are also time trials for the RC Bandito but they are more annoying to complete and have a higher cost of entry, given the price of the Bandito to start with.
Daily Objectives
Potential profit: $1.6 mil per 28 days
Prerequisites: Rank 15
Method: Open up the interaction menu and select "Daily Objectives". This will display the three objectives you'll need to complete on that day. Simply complete each task and you'll be rewarded with $25k upon successful completion. Some tasks may be more difficult to complete than others and require the use of friends to complete easily.
Tip: This is one of the easiest ways to earn money but only if you keep at it every day, as there are significant bonuses for seven and 28 consecutive days of objectives completed. Completing daily objectives for seven days in a row will earn a bonus of $100k, with 28 days in a row netting an extra $500k. The total amount of money you would make by completing all daily objectives for 28 days in a row would be $1.6 million (28x25k + 4x100k + 500k).
Double Money events
One final bit of advice is to take advantage of double money events. Almost every week Rockstar will change what you can do to earn double money. Sometimes it will be on races or adversary modes that, even with double money, won't be as efficient as the above methods. However sometimes some of the above methods may have a double money week, such as Gunrunning Bunker or Vehicle Cargo sales. The more options you have open to you, the more you can take advantage of these double money events if they happen to be for something lucrative. And if there's ever double money on Heists (which is very rare) absolutely do some grinding during that week.
