Escape From Tarkov Wipe: What Wipes, What Carries Over, and When the Next One Is

Short answer up front: Escape from Tarkov does not have mandatory wipes anymore. The last full server wipe shipped with version 1.0 on November 15, 2025, and since then your main PMC, stash, hideout and trader progress are permanent in both PvP and PvE. What replaced wipe day is a seasonal system — the first season, Kord Breach, launched with patch 1.1.0.0 on August 3, 2026, and gives you an optional fresh-start character instead of forcing everyone back to zero. This guide covers what a wipe actually resets, the complete wipe history since 2017, why Battlestate Games ended the old model, how seasons and modifiers work, and a practical early-season playbook for whatever reset you choose to ride.

---

Official resources: Battlestate Games official site · Steam store page · IGN wiki hub · tarkov.dev wipe history · Escape from Tarkov Wiki (Fandom)

What a Tarkov Wipe Actually Resets

A wipe is a server-wide reset of player progression, not your account. When the old model was active, a wipe zeroed out everything tied to a single "wipe cycle" of the game:

• PMC level — back to 1, with all skills (Endurance, Strength, Perception and the rest) and weapon mastery reset to zero
• Stash — emptied and replaced with the starter inventory of your edition (Standard, Left Behind, Prepare for Escape, Edge of Darkness or, post-1.0, Unheard)
• Hideout — every module (Generator, Medstation, Workbench, Bitcoin Farm...) reverted to its unbuilt state; crafted items and fuels gone
• Quest progression — all tasks reset; quest items you had stockpiled are gone with them
• Traders — loyalty levels back to 1 and reputation reset, so high-tier ammo and gear purchases close again
• Money and items — roubles, dollars, euros, keys, containers and weapon cases all disappear

The official wiki and every major guide site describe the same list, which makes it one of the most well-documented mechanics in the game (Escape from Tarkov Wiki — Wipe, a detailed community explanation on Gaming StackExchange).

What Always Survived a Wipe

Not everything died on wipe day. Things tied to your account rather than the wipe cycle stayed:

• Game edition bonuses — EOD and Unheard players kept their bigger stash size, starting containers and exclusive rewards
• Achievements, profile stats like total raids and survival rate, and any real-money purchases
• Some promotional items — Battlestate gave out event drops during the 1.0 launch Twitch campaign (Nov 15 – Dec 6, 2025) that were explicitly described as permanent and safe from future resets

Why Wipes Existed: The Design Logic

Battlestate Games has been open about why wipes were built into the game during its nine-year development run. On the official site, the studio stated that wipes serve balancing purposes and bring the project closer to its intended release state — a statement widely quoted by outlets like The Escapist in their wipe history coverage (Escapist Magazine — EFT wipe history).

In practice the community distilled that into four reasons:

1. Economy reset — every wipe, the flea market and trader prices recalibrate. Late-wipe inflation (everything priced in millions of roubles) evaporates overnight.
2. Testing and balance — major patches reshaped ammo, armor, recoil and loot tables. A clean slate let Battlestate see the new balance without 200-day-old accounts distorting it.
3. Catch-up for new players — a brand-new player in month six of a wipe ran into fully-geared veterans with maxed traders. Wipe day is the one time a fresh account faces an even field.
4. Freshness — the first month after a wipe is when player counts peak. Everyone returns, budget guns dominate, and raids feel different from late-wipe meta monotony.

Full Wipe History: Every Reset Since 2017

Battlestate never published a schedule, but the community-tracked data tells a clear story. The wipe tracking community (tarkov.dev, the open-source EFT toolkit) has cataloged every cycle, and gaming outlets have cross-checked the list (tarkov.dev wipe tracker, LFCarry wipe date tracker):

The pattern is obvious: roughly every six months, usually on a Thursday, always tied to a major patch. Over the last six completed cycles the average was about 175 days, and stretching back to 2017 the average sits near 184 days — which is why "every 6 months" became the community's shorthand (The Escapist's full 16-wipe list). Wipes before 2021 (December 2017 through December 2020) followed the same cadence. The wipe dates themselves were never announced far in advance — Battlestate typically confirmed them days or hours before servers went down, and a "pre-wipe event" usually ran in the week before.

The 1.0 Change: Why Mandatory Wipes Ended

Escape from Tarkov left Early Access on November 15, 2025, after more than nine years in development, and the launch was the last traditional wipe (IGN's 1.0 coverage hub, Inven Global's launch report). Battlestate had been signaling the change for years: studio head Nikita Buyanov said on multiple occasions that once the game left beta, wiping the main character would not be acceptable anymore — progress players paid years to build had to persist.

What replaced the wipe is the seasonal model, described by Buyanov as "a separate realm for those who want to experience all of the wipe related stuff — starting from scratch with everybody progressing through it" (quoted by multiple outlets including games.gg in their season explainer). The key phrase is separate realm:

• Your main PvP profile is permanent — levels, stash, hideout, quests, traders all persist
• Your PvE profile is permanent too (PvE was added during 0.14 as a co-op mode against AI)
• A seasonal profile is a brand-new, optional character that lives only for the duration of a season, on dedicated seasonal servers with their own economy and balance

This is a deliberate structural change, not a smaller wipe. If you played Path of Exile's league system or Diablo's seasons, the Tarkov model works the same way: the persistent realm keeps running, and the season exists alongside it for players who want the fresh-start rush.

Per the official Patch 1.1.0.0 announcement from Battlestate Games, the update "introduced the first KORD BREACH season" with a free Battle Pass shared across all game modes, a dedicated seasonal game mode, independent progression and a new gameplay modifier system.

Season 1: Kord Breach — The New Wipe Day

Kord Breach is Escape from Tarkov's first season, and it went live with patch 1.1.0.0 on August 3, 2026 after a short delay from the original late-July window (confirmed by game director Nikita Buyanov on July 27; tarkovquestie's season tracker, Inven Global's official release report). The headline facts:

• PvP-only. There is no seasonal PvE character in Season 1; the seasonal queue runs on dedicated PvP servers
• Separate character. Creating a seasonal PMC does not touch your permanent profiles — different stash, different quests, different hideout
• Minimum duration ~74 days. The season is expected to run roughly ten and a half weeks; Battlestate has said it intends two seasons per year
• Free Battle Pass. The first battle pass in Tarkov history, progress shared across all three profile types, with more than 70 rewards (Black Division cosmetics, weapon paints, unique equipment) and TerraGroup documents as the progression currency
• New content. A Black Division story questline, the QBZ-191 assault rifle, reworked trader Loyalty Levels (trade-volume requirements removed), faster insurance returns on the main profiles, and a squad spectator camera

The day-one experience is exactly what wipe day used to be: everyone starts naked, early tasks get swarmed, and the players who level fastest own the early economy. The difference is that your main account is sitting untouched in the background while you do it.

How Kord Breach Modifiers Work

The modifier system is the mechanical core of the season, and it is a genuine new system rather than a reskin. Every seasonal character runs under six automatic global modifiers that apply to everyone in the queue (Epiccarry's Kord Breach guide):

On top of the globals, you pick personal modifiers at character creation, balanced on a point system: positive modifiers cost points, negative modifiers refund points, and your final balance must sit at zero or above. Two previewed examples show how far the dial goes:

• Kappa Protocol — start with the Kappa secure container immediately, at a substantial point cost (this is the "easy mode" pick that skips the biggest late-game grind)
• Non-working Flea Market — disables player trading for your seasonal character, refunding points for a hardcore no-flea run

Your choices are locked at creation and cannot be changed mid-season, so the popular strategy is to plan the whole season's difficulty before you ever load into a raid. That decision-making layer — plus the separate seasonal economy — is what makes Kord Breach feel like a fresh game rather than wipe day with a new name.

What Carries Over vs. What Resets: The 2026 Model

The cleanest way to think about the new system is a three-column table — this is the model as of patch 1.1.0.0, and it matches what the official announcement describes (official news, skycoach's wipe-season explainer):

Two cross-over rules worth knowing: Arena progress transfers into your seasonal profile one-way (experience, trader rep, GP Coins, Lega Medals — but only progress earned after the season launched), and seasonal rewards you unlock stay unlocked forever across all profiles, which is the real long-term reason to play the season even if you hate starting over.

What to Do Before a Wipe or Season Start

Whether you are preparing for a future season or just jumped in mid-Season 1, the pre-reset checklist that veterans swear by looks like this:

1. Finish the old Collector / Kappa Path if the achievement matters to you. The Kappa Path achievement retired the moment Kord Breach went live on August 3, replaced by a new Kappa achievement under reworked requirements (all traders at Loyalty Level 4, a separate Fence reputation threshold, character level 40, plus a handful of retained quests like A Shooter Born in Heaven). Old progress you were sitting on is gone — multiple season guides, including Epiccarry and Boostmatch, flagged this as the single most important pre-season task.
2. Do not stockpile materials expecting a transfer. Seasonal hideout construction needs its own components; permanent-account hoards do not move into the season. Epiccarry's pre-season checklist explicitly warns against this.
3. Plan cheap, replaceable loadouts. With insurance disabled in the season, every kit needs to be worth losing. The early-season meta is budget SMGs, shotguns and iron-sight AKs — not the million-rouble M4 you would never insure anyway.
4. If you play Arena, wait. Only progress earned after the season opens transfers to your seasonal PMC, so grinding Arena before launch is wasted effort for season purposes.
5. Watch the official news feed for pre-season events. Blackout (on The Lab) ran into the Kord Breach launch window, and the Scav Boss Escalation event spiked boss spawns right before. Events are both content and the most reliable "season incoming" signal there is.

Early Wipe (and Early Season) Strategy: The First 24–72 Hours

The opening days are a race against the players around you, and the community has converged on a playbook that has not changed much in years (Insider Gaming's early-wipe starter guide, AltChar's fast-leveling guide, GameTruth's 2026 wipe-start guide):

• Quest first, fight only when you have to. Early tasks (Debut, Shortage, Checking, Introduction) are dramatically easier when everyone has level-1 gear, and several of them drop you straight into the forest — the Woods map guide covers the early quest locations like the Jaeger letter. Every quest gives trader rep, and rep is what unlocks the good trader stock — XP is secondary.
• Keep every quest item you find. Salewa medkits, gas analyzers, flash drives, Tushonka, corrugated hoses, bolts, screws, light bulbs — the item you sell for 3k roubles today is a 30-minute raid tomorrow. The wiki's quest lists are the standard reference.
• Run your gear instead of hoarding it. The single biggest rookie error is treating early armor as precious. Insider Gaming's advice is blunt: run that Tier-4 rig you found, because everyone else is still wearing PACA vests. Gear you never bring into a raid protects nothing.
• Use Scav runs as free money printers. Scav runs cost nothing and whatever you extract with is profit. They are also the safest way to learn maps — run the scav timer constantly in the first days.
• Night raids for quests. If a task is being camped (Introduction's Jaeger letter is the classic example), night raids have a fraction of the traffic and most quests do not care about the dark.
• Build the Hideout in order: Generator → Lavatory → Medstation → Workbench. The hideout is where you craft Salewas, ammo and quest items; GameTruth's guide puts generator first because it powers everything else, and the crafting stations pay for themselves within a week.
• If you came from Rust, the reset rhythm is familiar — Rust force-wipes servers monthly on the first Thursday, while Tarkov's cycles run roughly six months (Rust server guide); the early-wipe psychology transfers directly.
• Hit level 15 fast for the Flea Market. The base Flea Market unlocks at PMC level 15, with category gates at 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 (timesaver's Flea unlock guide). The flea is where early-wipe wealth is made — listing quest-redundant items for the prices late players will pay.
• Do not obsess over K/D or survival rate in week one. Progress metrics matter; pride metrics do not. Every death in the first 48 hours is cheaper than the same death in week six.

Common Wipe Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)

• Selling quest items for quick cash — the #1 early-cycle killer. Check the wiki's "required for quest" list before you vendor anything.
• Ignoring trader rep. Money spent with a trader is money that unlocks his higher loyalty levels. Spread purchases instead of dumping everything into the flea.
• Hoarding gear in the stash. A stash full of unrun kits is a stash full of nothing — insurance exists to get it back, and early gear is cheap to replace.
• Chasing PvP in week one. The players fighting over dorms in the first days are doing it for content, not progression. You can out-progress them by simply surviving and questing.
• Forgetting the hideout. The crafting stations are passive value that compounds all cycle. Skipping them for "later" is how mid-wipe players end up buying Salewas from Therapist.
• Assuming the season works like the old wipe. Kord Breach has no insurance, has locked modifiers, and will not touch your main stash. The old habits — insure everything, dump your stash, push trader turnover — are actively wrong in the new model.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the next Escape from Tarkov wipe?

There is no scheduled wipe. The last full server wipe was the 1.0 launch on November 15, 2025, and Battlestate has moved to a seasonal model. Season 1 (Kord Breach) launched August 3, 2026 and is expected to run roughly 74 days; Battlestate has said it targets two seasons per year.

Did Escape from Tarkov stop doing wipes?

Traditional mandatory wipes are finished. Since 1.0, main PvP and PvE profiles are permanent. The seasonal system offers optional fresh-start characters that reset only within the season — Battlestate has said wipes "will not disappear completely" but now live as a seasonal mechanic.

What carries over after a Tarkov wipe?

In the old model, only account-level things survived: edition bonuses (stash size, starting containers), achievements, and real-money purchases. In the current model, everything on your permanent profiles carries over indefinitely — nothing resets unless you opt into the seasonal queue.

Does the Kord Breach season wipe my main character?

No. Kord Breach runs on a separate seasonal profile with its own progression, stash and hideout. Your permanent PvP and PvE characters are untouched, and Battle Pass rewards you unlock during the season stay unlocked forever across all profiles.

How often did Tarkov wipes happen?

Roughly every six months, always tied to a major patch. Community-tracked data shows an average of about 184 days between wipes from 2017 to 2025, with the longest cycle at 236 days (0.14) and the shortest around 128 days (0.15).

---

Related Guides

• Escape From Tarkov Woods Map — extracts, keys, loot and Shturman
• Rust Beginner's Guide — how to play, survive and not quit
• Rust Server Guide — wipe cadence and how to choose a server
• Rust Full Kit Guide — the end-of-cycle gear grind in survival games

Last updated: August 13, 2026.