Cayo Perico heist guide: setup, finale and payout for every target
The Cayo Perico heist is still the fastest reliable money in GTA Online, and you can run the whole thing alone. This briefing ranks every primary target by value, lists the secondary loot worth your bag space, walks the standard solo route and shows how the fees, hard mode and the 2023 cooldown changes affect what actually lands in your account.
The short answer
Buy the Kosatka, run five mandatory setups, approach by submarine, enter the compound through the drainage tunnel, take the primary target from the basement vault, fill your bag with gold or paintings, and swim out. A clean solo run with the Panther Statue on hard mode clears around GTA$2.3 million after fees. A first run pays roughly GTA$1 million because the Madrazo Files are a fixed-value target.
How to unlock the Cayo Perico heist
You need an active GTA Online character and a few million in the bank. The heist itself unlocks after a short visit to the casino.
Quick steps: unlock and start the heist
- Head to The Music Locker, the club underneath the Diamond Casino and Resort, and watch the cutscene with Miguel Madrazo.
- Open Warstock Cache and Carry on your phone and buy the Kosatka (GTA$2,200,000 base price). Skip the Sonar Station and Guided Missiles for now.
- Board the Kosatka and use the heist planning screen on the bridge. Pavel briefs you.
- Your first run is free. Every run afterwards costs GTA$25,000 to open the board.
- Complete Gather Intel, then the required setups, then launch the finale from the same screen.
A Sparrow helicopter (GTA$1,815,000) stored in the Kosatka moon pool is the single best quality-of-life upgrade. It turns 15-minute setup drives into 4-minute hops. Buy it before any sub weapon.
Agent's note
Gather Intel is a one-time mission for the island layout, but the scoped secondary loot resets every run. Open the planning screen before each finale and read which compound loot spawned. That decides your route before you ever land.
Every primary target ranked by payout
The primary target sits in the basement vault and is chosen at random when you start a new run. You cannot pick it, but you can see it on the planning screen and bail out early if the roll is poor. Values below are the base and the hard-mode figure (10 percent higher).
- Panther Statue – GTA$1,900,000 base, GTA$2,090,000 on hard mode. The jackpot. It has never entered the regular random pool: it is an event-only target that is switched off by default, and the June 2023 San Andreas Mercenaries update did not add it to the regular rotation.
- Pink Diamond – GTA$910,000 base, GTA$1,001,000 on hard mode. Rare, and the only target that used to be locked to hard mode.
- Bearer Bonds – GTA$616,000 base, GTA$677,600 on hard mode. Common enough that experienced players treat this as the baseline.
- Madrazo Files – GTA$1,100,000, flat. Only appears on your very first finale. No hard mode, no reroll.
- Ruby Necklace – GTA$560,000 base, GTA$616,000 on hard mode.
- Sinsimito Tequila – GTA$400,000 base, GTA$440,000 on hard mode. The most frequent roll and the weakest.
| Target | Base value | Hard mode | How often you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Panther Statue | GTA$1,900,000 | GTA$2,090,000 | Event only |
| Pink Diamond | GTA$910,000 | GTA$1,001,000 | Uncommon |
| Bearer Bonds | GTA$616,000 | GTA$677,600 | Regular |
| Madrazo Files | GTA$1,100,000 | Not available | First run only |
| Ruby Necklace | GTA$560,000 | GTA$616,000 | Regular |
| Sinsimito Tequila | GTA$400,000 | GTA$440,000 | Most common |
Top pick: the Panther Statue. It out-earns tequila by a full million before you touch a single secondary stack. If you roll tequila and have time, you can cancel the heist from the planning screen and pay another GTA$100,000 to reroll, but the cooldown still applies, so most players simply run whatever comes up.
Secondary loot: what to put in your bag
Your loot bag holds a fixed capacity. Each stack fills a percentage of it, so the right question is value per bag, not value per stack.
| Loot | Value per full stack | Bag space per stack | Approx. value of a full bag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | About GTA$328,000 | Two thirds | About GTA$490,000 |
| Cocaine | GTA$220,500 | Half | About GTA$441,000 |
| Paintings | GTA$189,500 each | Half | GTA$379,000 |
| Weed | About GTA$147,000 | Three eighths | About GTA$394,000 |
| Cash | GTA$85,000 to 90,000 | One quarter | About GTA$360,000 |
Gold is the clear winner but it is awkward solo. One pile fills two thirds of your bag, so you grab a whole pile and top off a third of a second one if the basement spawned two. Paintings sit on the compound’s upper floor and are the quickest fill in the game. Cocaine is the best thing you will find outside the walls, usually at the airstrip or the north dock.
El Rubio’s office safe on the compound’s top floor adds GTA$18,000 to GTA$99,000 and is always accessible, whether or not you ran the optional Safe Code setup. It does not use bag space, so always take it.
Setup missions and which ones to skip
Five setups are mandatory. Everything else trades your time for a smoother finale.
Mandatory
- Gather Intel (first run only): scope the island, photograph the primary target through the vault camera, and find the drainage tunnel.
- Approach Vehicle: the Kosatka costs nothing and drops you right by the drainage tunnel. The Velum, Alkonost, stealth Annihilator, patrol boat and Longfin all need their own setup mission and suit team runs more than solo.
- Weapon Loadout: Conspirator or Crack Shot for stealth. The optional Unmarked Weapons job attaches suppressors, which is non-negotiable if you plan to shoot anything on the island.
- Fingerprint Cloner: opens the basement elevator door inside the compound.
- Plasma Cutter: cuts the glass case around the primary target in the vault.
Optional
- Cutting Torch: cuts padlocked gates and shortcut fences. Worth it for team runs that loot outside the compound.
- Safe Code: gives you the office safe combination. Worth it if you plan to detour to the office anyway.
- Demolition Charges: only relevant if you intend to go loud.
- Disruption (air support, weapons, armor): weakens guards on loud runs. Pointless if you stay in stealth.
Best Cayo Perico solo route
This is the route that most veterans run on autopilot. It avoids every alarm and takes 10 to 14 minutes with practice.
Quick steps: solo stealth finale
- Launch from the Kosatka, swim to the drainage tunnel at the back of the compound and cut the grate.
- Surface inside the compound pool area, crouch, and knife or headshot the single guard on your path with a suppressed weapon. Never let a body fall in camera view.
- Go to the basement entrance, use the Fingerprint Cloner hack and ride the elevator down.
- Open the vault with the second fingerprint hack, cut the glass with the Plasma Cutter and take the primary. The exit timer starts now.
- Loot the gold in the basement cages, or sprint to the upper floor for paintings if that is what spawned.
- Leave through the main gate with the keypad, grab the dirt bike or truck outside, drive to the west coast and swim until the heist completes.
Two refinements earn the Elite Challenge. First, do not loot the safe unless you have spare time, because the office is a detour. Second, when you exit the main gate, head straight off the cliff edge on the north-west side and swim. Drowning your tail is faster than driving around the island.
Heads up
Dying once voids the Elite Challenge bonus, and every death on the finale knocks a little off your total. If you get spotted inside the compound, the vault doors can lock with you still looting. Trigger the alarm after you have the primary, never before.
Solo vs team: when a crew is worth the split
Running alone keeps 100 percent of the take, but a team unlocks rooms and bag space that a solo agent cannot reach.
| Factor | Solo | Team of 2 to 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Cooldown after a finale | 144 real minutes (3 in-game days) | 48 real minutes (1 in-game day) |
| Double-keycard basement rooms | Locked | Open, often holding gold or paintings |
| Loot bags | One | One per player |
| Max realistic take | About GTA$2.3 million | Over GTA$4 million with Panther and four gold bags |
| Split | None | Leader sets cuts, minimum 15 percent each |
| Failure risk | One mistake ends the run | One careless teammate ends the run |
The cooldown gap is the real difference since June 2023. A solo player can start a new run every 144 minutes, so three complete heists per evening is the ceiling. Two players who trust each other can alternate as leader every 48 minutes and both clear more than a soloist in the same time.
Hard mode, Elite Challenge and cooldowns
Hard mode adds 10 percent to the primary target only. Secondary loot is unaffected. It triggers when you restart the heist promptly after your previous finale instead of leaving it idle, and Pavel flags it on the planning screen. Guards are a touch more aggressive, but the solo route above works unchanged.
Elite Challenge pays GTA$50,000 on normal and GTA$100,000 on hard mode. The conditions are a finale completed in under 15 minutes with nobody dying. Stealth is not required, but it is the easiest way to hit the clock.
Cooldowns were extended in the San Andreas Mercenaries update. Solo leaders wait 144 real minutes between finales, teams wait 48. The same patch rebalanced how often each primary appears, which is why tequila rolls feel so frequent now.
Payout math: what you actually bank
Two fees come off the top of every Cayo Perico payout. Pavel takes 2 percent, and the fence takes 10 percent, so you keep roughly 88 percent of the raw loot value. The Elite bonus is paid on top.
| Scenario | Raw loot | After fees | With Elite bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| First run: Madrazo Files plus a full bag of cocaine | GTA$1,541,000 | About GTA$1,356,000 | About GTA$1,406,000 |
| Typical solo: Bearer Bonds plus a full bag of gold, normal mode | About GTA$1,590,000 | About GTA$1,399,000 | About GTA$1,449,000 |
| Max solo: Panther Statue on hard mode plus a full bag of gold | About GTA$2,580,000 | About GTA$2,270,000 | About GTA$2,370,000 |
Subtract the GTA$25,000 setup fee from each run after the first. Even the weakest tequila roll with a bag of cash still nets more than GTA$1.1 million an hour of real time, which is why this heist tops any ranking of heist money in GTA Online. Pavel also drops a small amount of cash on the finale for each setup you completed, so running the Safe Code job pays twice.
There is no legitimate shortcut past this. Anyone offering gta online money cheats or a “modded Cayo lobby” is risking your account, and Rockstar bans for it.
How to judge a good roll
Before every finale, check three things on the planning screen and decide whether to run or reroll.
- Primary target value. Panther, Diamond or Bonds: run it. Ruby or Tequila: run it if you are short on time, reroll if you have 144 minutes to burn anyway.
- Compound secondary loot. Gold or paintings inside the walls means a fast one-stop route. Only cash inside means you should fill up on cocaine outside first.
- Hard mode flag. If it is lit, the extra 10 percent on a Panther is GTA$190,000 for the same twelve minutes of work.
FAQ
How much does the Cayo Perico heist pay solo?
Between GTA$1.1 million and GTA$2.37 million after fees, depending on the primary target and your secondary loot. The Panther Statue on hard mode with a full bag of gold is the ceiling for one player.
What is the Cayo Perico heist first-time payout?
Your first finale always hands you the Madrazo Files, worth GTA$1,100,000 before fees. Add a full bag of secondary loot and you walk away with roughly GTA$1.3 to 1.4 million, which more than covers the GTA$2.2 million Kosatka within two runs.
Can you do the Cayo Perico heist completely alone?
Yes. Every mandatory setup and the finale are built for one player. The only content locked away from solo runs is the pair of double-keycard rooms in the compound basement and the shorter 48-minute team cooldown.
Which platforms have the Cayo Perico heist?
Every version of GTA Online that is still live: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC. It is not part of GTA V story mode and has nothing to do with the Definitive Edition trilogy.
Does the Cayo Perico heist still pay well after the 2023 nerf?
It does. The June 2023 update lengthened the solo cooldown to 144 minutes and made the Panther Statue rarer, but target values and fees did not change. It remains the highest payout per minute of any heist in the game.
Do I need the Sonar Station or Guided Missiles on the Kosatka?
No. Neither affects the heist. Spend the money on a Sparrow for the moon pool instead; it cuts setup time more than any other purchase.