DayZ Server Monetisation: What Bohemia Interactive Actually Allows

Almost every DayZ community server that lasts a year is taking money somewhere — a priority slot, a donor tier, a Discord perk, a shop. Almost none of their owners has read what Bohemia Interactive publishes about it, because the rules are not on dayz.com, not in the game, and not where anyone looks.

They exist, and they are unusually strict. Of the games whose policies we have documented, DayZ is the only one where monetising is prohibited by default and you must apply for written permission first — and where the studio publishes a public list of who has it.

This page quotes Bohemia's documents directly and then explains what each rule means for a running server. It is not legal advice — it is Bohemia's published position, reproduced accurately, with the operational consequences spelled out.

The Sources, and How to Read This Page

DayZ monetisation is governed by more than one document, and they stack. In the order they bind you:

Quoted blocks are Bohemia's words, not ours

Every plain indented quotation block on this page is copied from those documents word for word, including their spelling and punctuation. The labelled callouts like this one, and all the ordinary body text, are our reading of what those words mean in practice. If the two ever seem to disagree, the quote wins — and so does the live page.

Two navigation notes. The monetisation rules are reached from bohemia.net/monetization, which redirects to old.bohemia.net/monetization — that redirect target is the live document. And the DayZ EULA and the Server EULA are different documents; the second covers the software your host actually runs.

The Short Answer

Bohemia's default position is that you may not make money from a DayZ server at all. The permission to do so is granted individually, in advance, on application.

DayZ Server EULA, under "Your Rights" — the entire section, which is one line:

"You may use the software for non-commercial purposes only."

And in the same document, under "You May Not":

"Do not use the software, any of its parts or the content commercially without Our permission."

The game's own licence says the same thing about the game, which matters because your players are bound by it too. DayZ End User License Agreement, under "Your Rights":

"You may play and use the game for non-commercial purposes only."

And under "You May Not":

"Do not use the game or any of its parts or the game content commercially without Our permission."

The words that matter, in both documents, are "without Our permission". That permission has a specific, published mechanism: registering on the monetisation page, being approved, and appearing on the public approved list. There is no reading of this in which approval is optional.

The list is public and you can read it before you apply. On 19 August 2026 the DayZ approved list carried 920 approved entries — so this is not a dormant process nobody uses. It is the normal state of a monetised DayZ server.

The Rules Themselves

This is the DayZ section of the Server Monetization Rules, in full. Note that the spelling of "Dayz" and the phrasing are Bohemia's:

"From December 1st 2015, anyone who registers, is approved, and is listed on https://old.bohemia.net/monetization/approved/dayz is allowed following monetization of their Dayz "private shard" servers:"

"Charging players to access your server, if the fees and associated perks do not affect gameplay in any way, is allowed. Limiting access to only paying players is allowed. Servers with access limited to paying players must be on a different hive, or have rules and settings identical to the freely accessible servers."

"Product placement, in-game advertising and sponsorship is allowed. Accepting donations is allowed, but to avoid any doubts: not providing donations must not prevent anyone from accessing the content."

"Selling of in-game items, that don't affect gameplay, and selling of cosmetic perks are allowed. (Applicable only to servers with mods, after modding support has been added to Dayz)"

"Please remember, that these rules do not apply to public hive Dayz servers or the Dayz mod!"

What that means in practice

This column is ours, not Bohemia's.

The permission has an expiry date printed on it

The rules page ends each game's section with the same sentence: "The permission is given for a limited time. It will expire on January 31st 2027." That is not boilerplate — it is a hard date, under a year away from this writing, and it applies to Arma Reforger, Arma 3 and DayZ alike. Nothing on the page promises an extension. Do not build a business that cannot survive that date passing without renewal, and put it in the calendar.

Donation Versus Sale — The Line Most Servers Cross

This is the single most misunderstood rule in DayZ hosting, and Bohemia answers it four separate ways in the FAQ. Read all four, because the answers are not intuitive.

"So far we have been accepting donations on our server, do we have to apply for approval?"

"No, donations are still allowed. But remember – a donation is a gift without any counter value. If your donators receive perks or rewards for donating then we no longer consider it a donation and you have to apply for the approval."

"May I give special weapons or other gameplay affecting items to donators as a reward for donations?"

"No, if someone is getting something back for donating, it is no longer a donation but a sale."

"May I give special clothing or other gameplay non-affecting items to donators as a reward for donations?"

"Yes, but it is no longer a donation. It is a sale of ingame items and you first need to register and get an approval."

And the definition Bohemia works from:

"Donation is a voluntary gift without any counter-value. You do not offer any perks or rewards for such donations and players do not expect anything back. This is allowed and does not require our approval."

The Game Content Usage Rules put the same test in blunter language:

"The fact that you are getting donations is not a problem, but they must be provided voluntarily, i.e. not providing donations must not prevent anyone from accessing the content, download it or store it in another place and operating it there."

"Donation" is a description of the transaction, not a label you get to apply

Almost every DayZ server that says it accepts "donations" is, under this definition, making sales. A donation tier with a Discord role attached is a sale. A donation that gets you a coloured name is a sale. A donation page that lists what you receive is a sale. Bohemia's test is entirely about whether anything comes back, not about what you call it — and the moment something comes back, you need approval you probably do not have.

The Gameplay-Affecting Test

Everything above turns on one distinction: does the thing you sold change how the game plays? Bohemia gives both lists explicitly, in the same FAQ answer.

Allowed:

"Monetization happens when players, unlike with donations, receive some kind of reward or perk for their money. This requires our approval. Some examples of allowed rewards are perks which do not affect gameplay, e.g. custom textures, skins, forum badges, reserved slots, product placement, in-game advertising and sponsorship. You can also sell in-game items which do not affect gameplay in any way (e.g. special hats, designed shirts with logos, etc.) – generally everything cosmetic is allowed."

Not allowed:

"On the other hand, perks and rewards such as providing in-game money, weapons, ammo, vehicles, discounts, vehicle spawns, housing and any other gameplay affecting features are not allowed and will not be approved."

That second list is the one to sit with. Spawn kits, starter loadouts, donor vehicles, base plots, in-game currency and gun packages are all named or covered, and the sentence does not say they are discouraged — it says they "will not be approved". A shop selling any of them is not one that failed to apply; it is one that could not have been approved if it had.

The catch-all is doing most of the work

"any other gameplay affecting features" is deliberately open-ended, and it sits at the end of a list of concrete examples. The conservative reading is the obvious one: if a paying player can do something in the world that a non-paying player cannot, it is gameplay-affecting. Cosmetics, cosmetic-only mods, forum and Discord status, and access to the server itself are the safe categories. Everything else needs a good argument.

Priority Queue: The Model Everyone Sells, and the Word Bohemia Never Uses

Priority queue is, in practice, the DayZ monetisation product — what the great majority of paid DayZ tiers are actually selling. So it is worth being precise about what the rules say about it, which is: nothing, by that name.

We searched all five documents mechanically. The words "queue" and "priority" do not appear anywhere in any of them — not in the rules, not in the FAQ, not in either EULA, not in the Game Content Usage Rules. The nearest thing to a ruling is a single phrase inside the FAQ's list of allowed rewards:

"reserved slots"

That is the whole of it — two words in a list of examples of "perks which do not affect gameplay".

The conservative reading, stated as a reading

A reserved slot and a priority queue slot are the same product described from two angles: both guarantee a paying player can get onto a full server. Bohemia names reserved slots as an allowed, non-gameplay-affecting perk, and separately permits "charging players to access your server" and "limiting access to only paying players". On that basis, selling queue priority is permitted — but it is permitted as paid access, which means it needs approval like every other sale. What is not supported anywhere is the common belief that queue priority is somehow outside the rules because it does not touch the world. It is inside them, it is a sale, and it requires the same application as a hat.

There is one more clause that catches paid-access servers specifically, and it is easy to miss because it reads like a technicality:

"Servers with access limited to paying players must be on a different hive, or have rules and settings identical to the freely accessible servers."

Money must not buy a better version of the server within a shared character pool. If a free and a paid server share characters, the paid one may not have higher loot, longer days, extra vehicles or friendlier rules. Split the hive, or match the settings.

Mods Add a Second Permission You Also Need

Bohemia's approval covers Bohemia's intellectual property. It does not cover anyone else's.

"On my server I am using mods created by other people. May I get approval to monetize?"

"You may, but ONLY if you have proper permission from all of the authors of such mods. Monetizing without it contravenes our licenses."

The mod author's veto is absolute and needs no action on their part:

"You don't have to do anything. Unless you give permission no one is allowed to monetize your creation."

And there is a reporting route that ends in your approval being withdrawn:

"Use the "Report" button next to the server in question and send us a report and we will investigate the matter and take away the monetization permission if this report proves to be true. Don't forget to include as much detail as possible."

A modded monetised server needs written permission from every mod author, not just the popular ones

"all of the authors" is not a soft requirement — it is the condition on which the whole approval rests, and any one author can trigger a report. Keep the permissions in writing, keep them with the mod version they were granted for, and re-check them when you add to your mod list. Note that the standing evidence-of-authorisation clause on the rules page is written into the Arma Reforger section only, not the DayZ one — but the underlying licence requirement is identical for DayZ, so being unable to produce the permissions is a risk either way.

Two more limits from the Game Content Usage Rules, both relevant if you are funding a modded server.

"Am I allowed to offer crowd-funding/donation/stretch rewards such as naming an island after someone, naming a campaign character after someone etc?"

"No this is not allowed, donation/funding or any other kind of rewards related to monetary contributions cannot be linked to any kind of in game content, the one exception to this is you are allowed to credit donators by name if you so wish in your mod's ingame credits and/or documentation."

"Am I allowed to create merchandising such as T-shirts/keychains/printed maps etc. which I offer as funding rewards and/or sell separately to fund my work?"

"Yes this is allowed as long as it does not infringe on any of Bohemia Interactive's trademarks/copyrights."

So: crowdfunding stretch goals that pay out in-game are out, and merchandise is in — under your server's or mod's own name, never under DayZ's.

Where the Wording Is Genuinely Ambiguous

Some of this document set is precise. Some of it is a decade old and shows it. Four places where a careful owner should read conservatively.

"private shard"

The DayZ rules apply to servers Bohemia calls "private shard" servers, and close by excluding "public hive Dayz servers or the Dayz mod". That is December 2015 vocabulary, from a period when the distinction between public and private hives was the live issue in DayZ hosting. Bohemia has not restated it since.

The conservative reading: the exclusion targets Bohemia's own shared character hive and the old Arma 2 mod, neither of which you can monetise and neither of which is what you are running. A community server with its own persistent character data is what the permission was written for. If your setup is genuinely unusual, ask through the contact form on the rules page rather than guessing.

"after modding support has been added to Dayz"

The cosmetic-items permission carries the parenthetical "(Applicable only to servers with mods, after modding support has been added to Dayz)". That was written as a forward-looking condition in 2015; modding support has long since arrived. The condition reads as satisfied — but note what it still does, which is to limit cosmetic sales to modded servers. A vanilla DayZ server has no supported route to selling cosmetics, because it has no mechanism to deliver one.

The FAQ has not kept up with the rules page

The FAQ answers the scope question like this:

"These rules apply exclusively to ARMA 3 and DayZ servers. Moreover, it is not allowed to monetize ARMA 2, or any other Bohemia Interactive game. However, bearing in mind the difference between donations and monetization, you can accept donations for such servers."

The rules page it belongs to now opens with a full Arma Reforger section dated 2 June 2025. So the FAQ's word "exclusively" is demonstrably out of date, and it is the only place in the set that dates itself by implication. Treat the rules page as authoritative and the FAQ as commentary where the two diverge.

Nothing carries a last-updated date

None of the three monetisation pages shows a revision date. The only dates in the whole set are the effective date for each game and the shared expiry of 31 January 2027, so you cannot tell from the page whether the DayZ text is the 2015 original or was edited last week. Re-read it before you rely on it, and check the DayZ EULA's date while you are there; that one is dated, and was showing 28 July 2026 when this page was written.

How This Compares to Other Games

Operators who run more than one game routinely assume the rules travel between them. They do not.

The DayZ column is sourced from the documents quoted above. The Rust column is checked against Facepunch's guidelines directly — the words "register", "apply" and "permission" appear nowhere in that document, which is why nothing there needs approving. The FiveM column summarises the clauses set out in FiveM Server Monetisation.

Two rows are worth dwelling on. Sponsorship is permitted by both Bohemia and Facepunch and prohibited under the Rockstar licence terms that govern FiveM, so a sponsor deal that is fine on your DayZ server is a breach on your FiveM one — see FiveM Server Monetisation for the clauses.

Pay-for-advantage splits the other way. Facepunch's guidelines permit selling "cosmetic items, effects or enhancements" and never define "enhancements", which leaves real room to argue that Rust VIP ranks selling gather rates are allowed; that ambiguity is unpicked in Rust Server Monetisation. Bohemia leaves no such room. If you are moving a Rust monetisation model onto a DayZ server, most of it does not come with you.

What Happens If You Get It Wrong

The rules page states the consequence for approved servers plainly:

"If we feel anyone on the list at https://old.bohemia.net/monetization/approved/dayz is exploiting any loopholes or is not acting in the best interests of the community, we will remove them. That will mean they will have to cease this kind of monetization immediately or face legal action."

Note the trigger. It is not limited to breaking a specific rule — "exploiting any loopholes" and "not acting in the best interests of the community" are both judgement calls reserved to Bohemia, and a technically-compliant scheme that reads as a loophole is squarely inside them.

For servers that never applied, the exposure is the licence itself. The Server EULA reserves termination without conditions:

"We can terminate the license at our own discretion anytime. Then You will no longer be allowed to download or use the software."

DayZ has no delisting mechanism equivalent to Rust's server-browser removal, so enforcement here is contractual rather than technical: slower and less visible than a delisting, and — given the phrase "face legal action" — potentially a great deal more serious.

One thing you do not have to worry about

Bohemia takes no cut. From the FAQ, in full: "No, we aren't getting any part of the income generated from this kind of monetization."

Taking Payment

Bohemia names no payment provider, processor or platform in the rules, the FAQ or either EULA. Approval governs what you sell, not who collects the money — but DayZ is poorly served by the storefronts other games use. Checked on 19 August 2026, against each platform's own site:

• Tebex — DayZ appears nowhere in its game server integrations or its published list of supported platform game types.
• PayNow — officially supports Rust, Minecraft, Garry's Mod, 7 Days to Die and Hurtworld. Not DayZ.
• CraftingStore — lists nine titles, none of them DayZ.

Tebex's self-hosted RCON adapter says it may be used with "any game server that supports RCON", while guaranteeing support only for a named list DayZ is not on. We have not tested it against BattlEye RCon, so treat that route as unverified and ask the provider before you build on it.

That matters less than it sounds, because the two things Bohemia will actually approve are delivered server-side anyway: paid access through the priority list and whitelist in DayZ Admin Commands: BattlEye RCon and Admin Tools, and cosmetics through mods. Get the approval first — the payment page is the easy part.

A Pre-Application Checklist

Before you take a first payment, walk this list against your live server:

1. Is anything at all coming back to the payer? If yes, it is a sale and you need approval, whatever your page calls it.
2. Does any perk touch the world? Kits, spawns, vehicles, currency, housing, better loot, rule exemptions — all named or covered by the prohibition. Remove them before you apply, not after.
3. Have you registered and been approved, and does your entry appear on the public list?
4. If paid and free servers share a hive, are their rules and settings identical?
5. Do you hold written permission from every mod author whose work runs on the monetised server, matched to the versions you run? See How to Install Mods on a DayZ Server.
6. Is cosmetic-only selling actually deliverable on your server — that is, are you modded? A vanilla server has no supported route.
7. Is your branding clearly your own, not styled to look like Bohemia's or DayZ's?
8. Re-read the rules and the FAQ before renewal season, and diary the 31 January 2027 expiry.

What to Read Next

• Getting started with your DayZ server — first boot, maps and the systems most owners change first.
• Configuring your DayZ server — serverDZ.cfg in full, including the login queue settings.
• DayZ Admin Commands: BattlEye RCon and Admin Tools — the priority list and whitelist that deliver paid access, and the RCon commands behind moderation.
• How to Install Mods on a DayZ Server — mod folders and keys, and the mod list your author permissions have to cover.
• Rust Server Monetisation and FiveM Server Monetisation — the same question answered by Facepunch and by Cfx.re, with very different answers.

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