FiveM Server Monetisation: What the Cfx.re Rules Actually Allow

Almost every FiveM server that survives its first six months is paying for itself somehow — a VIP rank, a priority queue slot, a paid vehicle pack, a donor tier. FiveM has probably the largest paid-content economy of any game-server platform, and the least accurately documented rulebook: the rules were rewritten on 12 January 2026, and most of what is written about them online describes an agreement that no longer exists.

This page quotes the current documents directly and then explains what each rule means for a running server. It is not legal advice — it is the published position of the people who can delist your server, reproduced accurately.

The Sources, and How to Read This Page

FiveM is a Rockstar Games product, Cfx.re is operated by Rockstar, and the governing document is a Rockstar agreement. Everything quoted below comes from one of five places:

The last of those is a third party's document. It is here only because Cfx.re's own documentation binds you to it, in wording quoted further down.

Quoted blocks are the platform's words, not ours

Every plain indented quotation block on this page is copied from the document named above it, word for word. The labelled callouts like this one, the tables marked as ours, and all 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 document, which Rockstar can change at any time.

The rules changed, and most guides did not

Cfx.re's official announcement, posted 22 December 2025:

"Our new Creator Platform License Agreement is expected to take effect on January 12, 2026. Your acceptance of our new Terms of Service will be required in order to fully participate in our products and services after January 12, 2026."

Practical consequence: anything written about FiveM monetisation before January 2026 describes a superseded agreement. Check the date on what you read, including this page.

The Short Answer

Four things decide almost every monetisation question on FiveM, and none of them is the cosmetic-versus-advantage line operators usually argue about:

1. There is exactly one permitted payment route. Tebex. Everything else — PayPal, Patreon, Ko-fi, a card form on your own site — is a violation.
2. You may not sell in-game virtual currency for real money. Stated flatly, and the rule the most FiveM stores break.
3. Chance-based mechanics are out, including when they cost in-game currency rather than real money.
4. Your storefront has to identify you and disclaim Rockstar, in specific language. Almost no FiveM store does.

Rule One: Tebex, and Nothing Else

Cfx.re's own documentation, on the page it publishes for setting up a store:

"Tebex is our authorized monetization partner for the Cfx Platform, allowing you to easily monetize your FiveM or RedM server."

"The use of any other platform or payment provider is prohibited and is a violation of the Platform License Agreement."

"Monetization of game servers is also subject to the policies outlined in the PLA, as well as the Tebex Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and Terms of Service (TOS)."

That is docs.fivem.net, and it is about as unambiguous as platform documentation gets.

The Creator PLA supplies the mechanism behind it at 5.2, where Rockstar reserves the right to name "authorized or exclusive service providers" and to "require you to use an Authorized Service in connection with specific aspects of the Creator Service".

What that means in practice

• A PayPal link in your Discord for server perks is a violation. So is Patreon, so is Ko-fi, so is a card form on your community site. This is the most common piece of stale advice still circulating.
• The prohibition is on the payment provider, not on Discord. Delivering a rank someone bought through Tebex into your Discord is fine — the Tebex AUP says so explicitly, quoted below.
• The Tebex AUP applies on top of the PLA. Something can be acceptable to Tebex and still prohibited by Rockstar; the stricter document wins.

Switching payment provider is not a paperwork exercise

Tebex requires identity verification and a store review before you can go live. Budget for the review, and do not announce a store date you cannot hit.

Rule Two: The Eight Prohibited Methods

Section 3.1 of the Creator PLA is the heart of it. The preamble first:

"3.1. Prohibited Methods. The license granted to you under this Creator PLA is limited and its scope excludes the right to engage in certain types of commercial exploitation, including those listed below. You may not commercially exploit the rights granted under this Creator PLA, your Creator Content, or Custom Server through any of the following methods:"

Then the list, in full:

"(1) any mechanic that allows a user to pay or transfer real-world monetary value including fiat currency, assets, crypto currency, or crypto assets (collectively "Real Money") to the Custom Server and subsequently receive, exchange, or transfer Real Money or its equivalent value to other users ("Cash Out"), including Real Money gambling of any kind (slot machines, blackjack, poker, or similar casino games);

(2) offering or selling for Real Money or in-game virtual currency any "loot boxes," "gacha" elements, random drawings, or sweepstakes, or functionally similar chance-based features or mechanics;

(3) offering or selling in-game virtual currency for Real Money;

(4) offering, selling, or facilitating access to Virtual Items (as defined in Section 4 of the Rockstar TOS) created by Rockstar;

(5) operating a Custom Server by, on behalf of, or in an ongoing commercial association with, a third-party brand (e.g. the "official" server of a brand or other sponsor);

(6) operating a website, digital storefront, marketplace, or other means through which Server Content created by a third party (i.e. someone other than you) is aggregated and sold or licensed to Server Admins for Real Money;

(7) creating, uploading, or distributing Creator Content that incorporates third-party promotions, advertisements, endorsements, or sponsorships, either in-game within a Custom Server or as Marketplace Content (defined below); and

(8) facilitating the use, sale, or promotion of cryptocurrencies or crypto assets (e.g. "NFTs," "tokens" or "meme coins")."

And immediately after:

"This list is not exhaustive; we reserve the right to modify or amend the list at any time and to suspend or prohibit commercial exploitation of the Creator Services or any Custom Server for any reason in our sole discretion."

Here is what each one looks like on a live FiveM server. This column is ours, not Rockstar's:

Two of those deserve their own sections.

Selling In-Game Currency: The Rule Most Stores Break

Clause (3) is one line and it has no qualifier:

"offering or selling in-game virtual currency for Real Money;"

Compare clause (4), which does carry a qualifier: Virtual Items created by Rockstar. Clause (3) does not. On its face it covers your server's own currency, not only Rockstar's.

The Roleplay (RP) Servers policy points the same way, in its list of enforcement priorities:

"(iii) commercial exploitation, including the sale of "loot boxes" for real-world currency or its in-game equivalent, the sale of virtual currencies, operation of server by or on behalf of (or in commercial association with) a third-party brand, generating revenue via corporate sponsorships or in-game integrations, or the use of cryptocurrencies or crypto assets (e.g. "NFTs")"

"The sale of virtual currencies", again unqualified, in a second Rockstar document with its own date (January 7, 2025).

Tebex's own rules land in the same place from a different direction:

"1.5 Is offering for sale any items that can be converted into fiat (real-world) currency"

Selling in-game cash is the highest-risk product on a FiveM store

Two Rockstar documents prohibit the sale of virtual currency without carving out server-created currency, and the payment provider you are required to use prohibits selling anything convertible to real money. The conservative reading is that a "10,000 in-game cash" package is not a product you can safely list. If you already sell one, that is the first thing to review.

This is also where FiveM differs sharply from other games: on a Rust server, selling your own server currency is explicitly permitted by the studio — see Rust Server Monetisation. Do not carry assumptions across platforms.

Chance, Crates and In-Game Casinos

Clause (2) catches roleplay servers by surprise, because of five words in the middle of it:

"offering or selling for Real Money or in-game virtual currency any "loot boxes," "gacha" elements, random drawings, or sweepstakes, or functionally similar chance-based features or mechanics;"

A crate that costs in-game money and returns a random item is a chance-based mechanic offered for in-game virtual currency. Read literally, that is inside the clause.

Where the wording is genuinely ambiguous

All of 3.1 is introduced by "You may not commercially exploit the rights granted under this Creator PLA, your Creator Content, or Custom Server through any of the following methods". That leaves two defensible readings of (2):

• Narrow: (2) only bites when the chance mechanic is part of commercial exploitation. A purely in-fiction casino, funded only by money players earned in-game with nothing purchasable feeding it, would sit outside 3.1 entirely.
• Broad: the clause names in-game virtual currency itself as a prohibited consideration, so a chance mechanic priced in server currency is caught regardless.

This is genuinely ambiguous and we are not going to pretend otherwise. The conservative reading is the broad one, and it hardens the moment real money touches any part of the loop — if a player can buy anything that improves their odds, funds the wager or converts into the reward, you are in clause (1) or (2) with no argument left.

Tebex's AUP removes the ambiguity for anything you actually list for sale:

"1.6 Is offering for sale any items involving gambling, or other activities where the reward/prize is based on chance, including, but not limited to casino-type games, betting on the outcomes of any event, lottery-type events or any other ventures that involve a purchase/entry with an outcome based on chance (whether or not legally defined as gambling), including "lootboxes" or similar mechanics under other names."

Priority Queue, VIP and Cosmetics: What the Documents Do Not Say

This is the question operators ask most, and the honest answer is that no Cfx.re or Rockstar document mentions priority queue at all.

We checked. The word "queue" does not appear anywhere in the FiveM convar reference — FiveM ships no native queue, and queueing is entirely a third-party resource concern. The Creator PLA does not name it, permit it, or prohibit it. Neither does the RP Servers policy.

So the permission for queue priority is an absence, not a written permission: selling a place in your own server's queue is not one of the eight prohibited methods, is not a virtual currency, is not chance-based, and involves no Rockstar Virtual Item.

The nearest thing to a written permission comes from Tebex, whose AUP Cfx.re's documentation binds you to:

"1.2 Is offering for sale any items not directly related to your game server or it's community, or items that impact core gameplay or other servers. For example, selling on-server perks or ranks in an associated communication channel (such as Discord) is acceptable, whereas selling items including but not limited to software, physical goods, access to vehicles, weapons or other items that affect other servers or core gameplay is not acceptable."

That sentence is not well drafted. "Access to vehicles, weapons or other items that affect other servers or core gameplay" can be read as prohibiting the sale of vehicles and weapons outright, or only those that affect other servers or core gameplay. Given that FiveM's own Marketplace sells vehicle packs to server owners, the second reading is clearly the intended one — the target is items that leak off your server, not items scoped to it.

There is no cosmetic-versus-advantage line in these documents

Operators spend a lot of energy arguing about whether a paid perk is "pay to win". Neither Rockstar nor Cfx.re draws that distinction anywhere in the documents above. What they care about is currency, chance, cash-out, Rockstar's own content, brands and crypto. The safest products are perks that exist only on your server and cannot be converted to money: queue priority, ranks, whitelisted job access, character slots, cosmetic clothing and liveries, and the Discord roles that mirror them.

Donations Are Not a Thing Any More

This surprises people arriving from other games, where "accept donations" is an explicitly permitted method. The Tebex AUP prohibits pure donations outright:

"1.8 Does not offer anything in exchange for the payment (in other words, Donations). All products listed must provide a benefit to the Customer. Packages that do offer deliverables should not be described as donations."

"1.9 Suggests that funds are being given or donated to a third party, such as a charity."

"2. All products offered for sale must be specific, with defined benefits and deliverables explained in the description. Products that are variable based on discussions or actions outside of the Tebex platform are not permitted."

What that means in practice: the donate to keep the server alive, get a thank-you role model has to be restructured. Every package needs a named deliverable in its own description, and none of it should be called a donation. The last sentence of 1.8 reads oddly — it appears to be a drafting slip for "do not offer deliverables" — but the rule either way is that a package is a product with a described benefit.

Paid Scripts, Asset Escrow and the Marketplace

Selling a resource is a different question from selling a server perk, and FiveM has purpose-built machinery for it. Asset escrow, from the Cfx.re documentation:

"Asset Escrow is a system that allows developers to protect their code by preventing others from modifying or accessing certain scripts directly."

"The resource will not start, and an error stating 'You lack the required entitlement' will appear in the server console."

"You can create and update resources that require a subscription to access."

"If the subscription expires, the asset is removed from the subscribed user's account and will no longer start on the user's server."

"Transfer of created assets to another account is not supported, and escrowed assets can only be distributed via a Tebex package."

"New User Interface (NUI) is not currently supported."

Two consequences fall straight out of that. NUI is not escrowed, so the web layer of a script you buy stays readable even when its Lua is encrypted — a purchased resource is not a black box. And entitlements are account-bound and revocable: if a subscription lapses the resource stops starting, so a framework dependency on a subscription script is a live outage risk on renewal day.

The Cfx Marketplace is the official storefront, launched alongside the new agreement on 12 January 2026 and described in Cfx.re's own announcement as "a curated digital storefront where talented FiveM/RedM creators can share and sell their work". It is not open to everyone: Cfx.re's support documentation states that "Cfx Marketplace will be made available to more Creators over time to ensure quality of service."

If you buy from it, PLA 6.3 licenses you to "incorporate the Marketplace Content into one or more Custom Servers for which you act as Server Admin and hold a corresponding server key", and draws a line between purchase models: a one-time fee gives a licence that "is irrevocable", while a subscription licence "shall automatically terminate when you terminate your applicable subscription or when the Marketplace Creator ceases offering the applicable subscription, whichever happens first."

Clause 6.4 sets the limits. You may not:

"(1) resell, transfer, share, loan, or redistribute the Marketplace Content on a standalone basis outside of a Custom Server, or allow others to do the same"

Clause 3.1(6) makes third-party script shops a prohibited business

Reread it: you may not operate "a website, digital storefront, marketplace, or other means through which Server Content created by a third party (i.e. someone other than you) is aggregated and sold or licensed to Server Admins for Real Money". Selling your own work through your own Tebex store is fine. Aggregating other people's resources for sale is the prohibited method, and a great many long-standing FiveM script sites sit squarely inside that sentence.

Reselling the Platform, and What Your Storefront Must Say

Cfx.re's own products — server keys, Element Club subscriptions, the client — are not yours to resell or rebadge. The licence you hold is described at 2.1:

"Rockstar grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to access and use the Creator Services on compatible devices that you own or control."

"Non-transferable, non-sublicensable" is the operative pair. Clause 2.3 closes the branding side:

"You must not use any elements of the Covered Games or Rockstar's logos, trademarks, or other intellectual property in any manner that suggests that a Custom Server is approved, sponsored, or endorsed by Rockstar. Without limiting the foregoing, you may not use such elements or intellectual property as part of the name or branding associated with a Custom Server."

The same clause carries the most-ignored requirement in the whole agreement, and it is a two-minute fix:

"All websites, product listings, storefronts, or other user-facing information related to a Custom Server must: (1) clearly and conspicuously identify and provide a valid email contact for the individual(s) or entity that operates such Custom Server; and (2) include a clear and conspicuous disclaimer substantially similar to: "[CUSTOM SERVER NAME] IS NOT APPROVED, SPONSORED, OR ENDORSED BY ROCKSTAR GAMES.""

Both parts are mandatory, and both apply to your store, your community site and your product listings — not just your server name. Tebex separately requires a customer support contact before a store can go live, so the email obligation is enforced from two directions.

Clause 3.2 then puts the whole compliance burden on the operator: consumer protection, advertising, e-commerce, tax collection, subscription rules and customer data are all named as "solely" your responsibility, not the platform's.

What Happens If You Get It Wrong

The PLA states the consequence at 7.2:

"Rockstar reserves the right to take Adverse Action in accordance with the Rockstar TOS against any user, Account, Creator Content, Marketplace Content, or Custom Server in the event of a breach of this Creator PLA, the Creator Policies, or the Rockstar TOS."

"Adverse Action" is defined in the Rockstar Terms of Service at 6.7:

""Adverse Action" may include, without limitation: resetting some or all in-game progress associated with your Account; suspending your access to some or all of the Services, Virtual Items, or your Account; terminating your access to some or all of the Services, Virtual Items, or your Account in accordance with the termination provisions below; barring you from creating an Account or accessing the Services in the future"

Because a FiveM server boots against a licence key tied to a Cfx account, account-level suspension and server-level action are the same event in practice.

Tebex adds its own, faster one:

"3.1 Disable the webstore responsible for the breach
3.2 Limit access to funds generated by the webstore responsible for the breach"

That second line is the one to sit with. A store suspension can freeze funds you have already taken but not yet been paid.

There is a visibility penalty too: Cfx.re's Featured Server List criteria require that "The server does not violate the FiveM PLA", and list "The server violates the FiveM PLA" among the reasons for removal.

A separate, purely technical rule will delist you regardless of your store

Cfx.re, verbatim: "Unsupported server artifacts older than three months will not be joinable from the server browser." Nothing to do with monetisation, everything to do with revenue — a server nobody can find in the browser sells nothing. Re-verified against the current documentation at the time of writing. The update cadence that keeps you inside it is in OneSync, Updates, and Backups.

Finally, the RP Servers policy is careful to say it grants you nothing:

"This is not a license, and it does not constitute endorsement, approval, or authorization of any third-party project. Take-Two reserves the right to object to any third-party project, or to revise, revoke and/or withdraw this statement at any time in their own discretion."

A Pre-Launch Audit

Walk this against your live server and your store before you take another payment:

1. Is every payment taken through Tebex? Kill any PayPal, Patreon, Ko-fi or direct card route, including "unofficial" ones your admins run.
2. Do you sell in-game currency for money? The highest-risk product on the list. Restructure it into a described, server-scoped perk or remove it.
3. Is anything you sell chance-based — crates, keys, spins, raffles, mystery packs? Remove it, and review the in-game chance mechanics that paid products feed.
4. Do any paid perks touch Rockstar-created content or currency, rather than your own server content?
5. Is there brand, sponsor or advertising money in the server or in your content? Clauses (5) and (7) cover both.
6. Does every package have a specific, described deliverable, and does nothing call itself a donation?
7. Does your store carry a valid operator email and the "NOT APPROVED, SPONSORED, OR ENDORSED BY ROCKSTAR GAMES" disclaimer?
8. Is any escrowed resource you depend on subscription-based? Diary the renewal — a lapse stops the resource starting.
9. Are your artifacts inside the three-month window, so the server is in the browser at all?
10. Re-read the Creator PLA and check its date against the one quoted here. If it has moved, the document has changed.

What We Could Not Confirm

Saying this plainly is more useful than pretending the picture is complete:

• Whether clause 3.1(3) covers server-created currency or only Rockstar's. The text carries no qualifier and a second Rockstar document repeats "the sale of virtual currencies" unqualified, which is why we give the conservative reading — but Rockstar has published no clarification either way.
• Whether an in-game-currency-only casino is caught by clause 3.1(2). Both readings above are defensible on the text.
• What the previous agreement said. We could not retrieve an archived copy of the pre-2026 PLA from any first-party source, so nothing here describes what changed clause by clause — only that the document was replaced on 12 January 2026.
• Any published enforcement ladder for monetisation breaches. Cfx.re's support site publishes a ban FAQ, but it covers anti-cheat detection of client-side programs, not policy enforcement against servers. The only stated consequence is "Adverse Action", defined broadly and without stages.

What to Read Next

• OneSync, Updates, and Backups — the artifact window that keeps you in the server browser.
• Configuring your FiveM server — where sv_tebexSecret and the rest of server.cfg live.
• Database and Frameworks — the player data every paid perk is written against.
• Rust Server Monetisation — a studio that publishes a very different set of rules, and a useful contrast.

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