GTA Online Salvage Yard Business Guide (Passive Income)

To start the tow truck mission, head to your parked tow truck within the Salvage Yard and hop inside. Once you're in, you'll see a prompt giving you the option to either launch the tow truck service or respray the tow truck.

Upon starting the mission, you'll find yourself outside the Salvage Yard in your tow truck. Your objective is to drive to the vehicle highlighted by Jamal and return it to the Salvage Yard.

Sometimes, you may attract a 2-star wanted level. While you can't use Lester's services to shake off the cops, you can evade them by either causing your own demise or letting the police handle it.

This goes without saying, but assuming you end yourself using explosives, keep a safe distance between the tow truck and the vehicle you're recovering, to prevent mission failure!

After delivering the vehicle to the Salvage Yard, your staff will start salvaging it. If you've purchased the staff upgrade, this process should take 48 minutes. While your staff are occupied with the first vehicle, you're free to proceed with your next tow truck mission and retrieve the second vehicle.

Tow truck payout

You can make anywhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per salvage. While some cars have reportedly fetched players $50,000 to $60,000, these instances are rare. In most cases, you should anticipate earning between $30,000 and $40,000 per car. You get this amount as soon as 48 minutes have passed.

Maximizing your Salvage Yard profit

On top of the tow truck services work described above, your Salvage Yard can also earn you passive income, much like the Nightclub business. Just as the Nightclub's popularity system raises passive income in the safe, with each new vehicle that you source with your tow truck, your Salvage Yard gets an increase in its passive income.

Unfortunately, there's no direct method to monitor your hourly earnings; it's more of an intuitive thing, unless Rockstar Games decides to include a maximum earnings progress bar similar to the Nightlcub's Popularity bar. The Salvage Yard safe receives a deposit every in-game day, translating to approximately 48 minutes in real time.

You increase the amount that gets deposited into your safe every 48 minutes by sourcing cars via the tow truck services, and you can increase this regular, 48 minute deposit amount to a maximum of $24,000 each time by sourcing four cars. The following table shows you how much you can make for sourcing four cars.

Now, you might be curious about how this is feasible, given the 48-minute salvage time. How can you source four vehicles consecutively to maximize the profits in the safe?

Don't worry, Rockstar has provided some leeway here before the "popularity" or the deposit amount starts to decline. Once you've acquired one car and the deposit amount has risen to $7,200, you have 96 minutes real-life time before it drops to $4,800. 96 minutes translates to 1.6 hours in real time, which is just over one hour and thirty minutes.

So, fortunately, you'll have more than enough time to tow and salvage another vehicle before that timer runs out. Similarly, once you've salvaged your first car (after 48 minutes have passed, with the staff upgrade) and your second car enters salvaging, quickly start another tow truck mission and retrieve the third car. Finally, once the second car has finished salvaging, you can acquire your fourth car. You can repeat this process to achieve the maximum $24,000 deposit amount.

The decrease in the amount is the reason we included the other deposit amounts in the table above. The non-highlighted numbers represent the amounts you receive as your 1.6 hours pass by. For instance, if you've already acquired all four vehicles and have not obtained another within 1.6 hours, the amount deposited to your safe every 48 real-life minutes will reduce to $21,000 (down from the maximum $24,000). And if you do not tow a vehicle for another 1.6 hours, it will decrease to $19,200, which is equivalent to the amount you get for towing three cars.

Salvage Yard robberies

The tow truck service is just one aspect of the Salvage Yard. The real money-making method is the robberies that you do in partnership with Yusuf Amir and his cousin Jamal Amir. These new robberies entail a sequence of preparatory missions leading up to the ultimate heist targeting a high-value vehicle.

There are a total of five robberies and you get three random robberies that you can do each week. From the robberies, you can earn a minimum of $260,000 (for The Gangbanger Robbery) through to a maximum of $405,000 (for The Podium Robbery). Additionally, you have the chance to earn an extra $50,000 by successfully completing the bonus challenges for each robbery.

Check our complete guides on how to complete each robbery with bonus challenges:

• The Gangbanger Robbery
• The McTony Robbery
• The Duggan Robbery
• The Podium Robbery
• The Cargo Ship Robbery

Is it worth purchasing the Salvage Yard?

For GTA Online newcomers, we suggest holding off on acquiring the Salvage Yard. There are more lucrative money-making methods to explore first. Utilize other businesses like the Nightclub business, Hangar business or even Agency missions to build a solid financial foundation before diving into the salvage yard business. Check out our best money making methods, including the Cayo Perico heist method which is great for solo players.

On the other hand, if you're a seasoned player with well-established businesses in GTA Online, adding the Salvage Yard is a viable option for an additional income stream, and of course, some fresh gameplay and things to do!