ROB RUN Settlement Guide: Buy, Own and Collect Taxes

What is a settlement in ROB RUN?

A settlement is the land layer of ROB RUN. Every player base sits on a plot, and the support center explains that an ownerless settlement cannot host anyone’s base. So until a player buys it, nobody can rent there. One player reports that each settlement holds ten house plots, which caps how many residents an owner can take in.

Kefir (Kefir Games) laid out a five-step ladder in an October 28 developer post, a week before Early Access opened. Settlement Owner is the middle rung:

Rung	Role	What it takes
1	Hobo	Nothing yet
2	Settlement Resident	A rented plot
3	Settlement Owner	A settlement title
4	District Owner	A clan
5	Shadow Governor	Leading the Highlands clan

If you only want a home for your base, renting one plot is the smaller step. Our land plot title guide covers that route; this page is about owning the whole settlement.

How do you buy a settlement?

Players report that a settlement title is its own document, separate from the land plot title that rents a single house; Kefir’s FAQ and patch notes call both of them documents. The launch-day changes altered the payment too: Tier 1 settlements and plot rentals now take documents rather than straight cash.

Three player accounts agree on two points about where to buy. First, each settlement cell on the global map shows how many of its plots are taken, so you can aim for a mostly empty one. Second, older servers fill up within hours to days, and one of them saw settlements bought out within two or three hours of a server opening. Your best chance is a fresh server. Each region gets at least one new server every day, and Kefir times the EU opening for 5 PM UTC and the East US one for 8 PM ET.

After the title is yours, two players report that you skip the land plot title for your own house and simply claim one of the plots in your settlement.

The players who show the purchase agree on the order. The single-source line is marked:

Stage	What happens	Sources
Unlock	Settlement title opens in the tech tree (H)	2 players
Buy	Pay for the title at the Black Market	2 players
Claim	Open a free settlement, choose Buy Settlement	2 players
Name	You name the settlement after buying	2 players
Limit	Five settlements per player at most	1 player

The risky part is the drive. Settlements are full-loot PvP zones, and anyone who kills you while you carry the title can take it. Go straight to the plot and avoid fights on the way.

How much does a settlement cost?

Kefir has not published settlement prices. The figures below come from one player, in a video published November 8, and they are the only numbers we have as of November 11, 2026.

Item	Reported cost
Tier 1 settlement	$300,000 to unlock and buy
Tier 2 settlement unlock	$200,000
Tier 2 settlement purchase	$2,000,000
Tier 2 plot title unlock	$200,000, same as above

Treat the Tier 1 line as rough. A second player gave a much higher, hedged estimate, and since launch day Tier 1 settlements have moved to documents, so the dollar total is what one buyer spent, not a fixed tag.

Later reports, as of November 13, 2026, describe the same total in two parts. Players report a 100k unlock and then 200k for the level one title, which lines up with the $300,000 in the table, and a pair of player guides put a whole level two settlement at 2 million. Kefir’s November 4 notes say Tier 1 settlements cost documents instead of cash; players describe paying cash for the title, which is itself a document.

The title is not the last expense. Some Shipments unlocks (press H) only open when your base is in a higher-level settlement, and the November 4 patch raised what certain Tier 2 and Tier 3 items cost. Budget for those unlocks before you stretch for a higher tier.

What do settlement owners get?

The support center ties owner income to tenant activity: you earn a share of the money residents spend and launder, and it waits until you come to pick it up in person. That same pre-launch post named the taxed activities and added a perk.

Owner perk	Where it comes from
Tax on resident laundering	October 28 post
Tax on resident Black Market buys	October 28 post
Cut of tenant spending	Support center
Free base on your own turf	October 28 post
No plot title for your house	Two players

One owner of a level two settlement reports a money bag icon over it on the map and taxes coming in from the earnings of five residents.

Tax arrives in batches, not as a stream. A pair of owners say a new batch is ready about once an hour, and one of them clocked it at 59 minutes; a single report adds that pickup happens at a debt collector’s van. Expect company when you go. Two creators say the game tells the whole settlement when the owner collects, and other players show up to kill the owner.

Three players tie the size of each batch to how many residents or houses the settlement has and how busy they are, including what they earn and spend at the Black Market. Amounts owners saw, as of November 13, 2026:

Case	Reported tax	Sources
Tier 1	About 40 to 60,000 an hour	2 owners
Tier 1 pickups	50k when full, 54k once	2 owners
Tier 2, 5 or 6 residents	About 250k an hour	1 owner
Tier 3, 2 residents	About 500k an hour	1 owner
12+ hours uncollected	Only 52,000 waiting	1 owner

The owner behind that last row says tax does not pile up while you are offline, so a long break does not pay more.

Owners are not at the top. Per the same October 28 post, whichever clan controls your district skims the taxes that owners there collect and gets faster laundering on top, and the higher the district level, the bigger that boost.

What do residents get, and what do they pay?

The October 28 developer post listed what renting land gives a resident:

• a plot for a base and businesses
• Shipments that players living at the motel cannot unlock
• selling at the Sales Center
• discounted contraband

That post came out before the November 4 patch moved Tier 1 rent to documents, so read the rent sign next to a plot rather than counting on a cash price.

Whether residents pay tax on top of rent is disputed. Three players say people living in a settlement pay tax to its owner and the owner pays none. Another player thinks renters are not charged directly and the owner simply gets free money. The support center only says the owner takes a cut of what tenants spend and launder. One rate floats around too: a single player says owners collect 50% of all money residents launder, citing the in-game tips page (K), while Kefir gives no percentage.

Location adds more. Two players report that settlements touching a bonus icon on the map give residents an extra perk, such as cheaper weapons or equipment, and one of them puts the discount at 10 to 15 percent. A plot also matters for transport: you need a land plot with a house or garage before you can buy your own vehicle.

The in-game mail sent on November 9 spelled out how money moves up:

Who pays	What	To whom
Resident	Rent	Settlement owner
Settlement owner	Tribute	Clan holding the district
Every settlement	A cut	Shadow Governor

At the very top, one player leads the clan that holds the central Highlands and becomes the only Shadow Governor. Our ROB RUN clan guide explains districts and turf.

Can someone take your settlement?

In the October 28 developer post, Kefir wrote that a settlement you own cannot be taken from you until the wipe arrives. That was said before launch, so watch the patch notes in case it changes.

The wipe is the real deadline. The Federal Raid hits every seven days; cash, weapons, bases and plots all go, and what you had turns into jail time and authority. Ownership lasts one cycle at most, and our ROB RUN wipe guide lists what carries over.

The land is safe inside a cycle, but three things are not:

• The title on the trip out, since a killer can take it.
• Loose cash, which other players can steal and which can be confiscated.
• Stolen goods kept at your base, since bases can be raided.

Leaving the server is a separate risk. One owner who left and came back found the house gone; the game said the account no longer owned the settlement, and tax collection was blocked.

Money sitting in the bank cannot be stolen before the next wipe. The route has two stops: an account at the Looty Bay Bank, opened while you play as a Civilian, and the Laundering Desk inside your base. Laundering is slow, so start right after you collect your tax. Our ROB RUN money guide walks through it, and the ROB RUN game hub lists the other guides.

Can you take over someone else’s settlement?

No. Kefir’s rule is that nobody can seize a settlement before the wipe, and a player test points the same way. Using a second account, the tester found that a settlement stays listed under its buyer after the buyer leaves the server, and the second account could neither buy it nor collect its taxes. That test has a single source.

What you can take is smaller than a whole settlement:

Move	What you get	Sources
Eviction item	A resident’s plot, after a break-in	2 players
Vault loot	A title for a level two settlement	1 group
Clan turf	Districts and rival clan territory	2 players

The eviction item removes a player from a plot. Both players who describe it break into the house first and use the eviction after; it targets a resident, not the settlement owner. Getting through the door is covered in our ROB RUN raid guide.

Vault loot is another route to a title. One group pulled a title for a level two settlement out of a vault and said it sells for 800,000, as of November 13, 2026. It is a title for buying an open settlement, not a key to an occupied one.

Clans work a level higher. A pair of players say clans can take over districts and other clans’ territory, but neither explains how. Kefir’s side is that a clan holding a district collects a cut from every settlement owner inside it, as the clan guide linked above explains.