Cyberpunk 2077 guide: How to make money fast(ish)

Everything in Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City is expensive. New cyberware, used vehicles, and even weapons are going to cost you tens of thousands of eurodollars (or more). Two early main story jobs — “Paid in Full” and “Ghost Town” — require you to hand over €$21,000 and €$15,000 respectively, which is a whole lot of cash to come up with early in the game.

In this Cyberpunk 2077 guide, we’ll talk about the best (or at least our favorite) ways to make money.

Side Jobs, Gigs, NCPD Scanner Hustles, and Reported Crimes

This is kind of a non-answer, but the best way we’ve found to make money in Cyberpunk 2077 is to just play the game. Most things you do around Night City will earn you some cash. Specifically, though, we’ve found that Side Jobs, Gigs, and the crimes you stumble across have a pretty good payout.

Side Jobs and Gigs come from that steady stream of phones calls and texts from fixers. They show up as yellow icons on your map, and easily earn you a couple thousand eurodollars apiece. As your Street Cred increases, you’ll get access to more and higher level Gigs (with even better payouts).

NCPD Scanner Hustles and various crimes appear on your map as light blue icons. These include Assault In Progress and Suspected Organized Crime Activity events. You’ll also get some of these via phone calls or texts from NCPD dispatchers, and others you’ll just walk past as you travel the city. These don’t earn quite as much cash, but they’re much quicker.

Since crimes are popping up all the time, and you’re constantly getting new Gig offers, it’s possible to make over €$20,000 in under an hour. Especially if you hack Access Points as you go.

Access Points

Image: CD Projeckt Red via Polygon

Scattered around Night City, you’ll find these intercom panel-looking devices. When you jack into them, you’ll be able to upload a Dataminer Daemon with a Breach Protocol puzzle.

Some Access Points have a requirement to get in, so drop a few Attribute Points into Intelligence to make sure you’ll be able to use every one you find. Under Intelligence > Breach Protocol, look for the Extended Network Interface (highlights nearby Access Points) and Advanced Datamine (Datamine Daemon upgrade) Perks.

Just with those three Perks, a mediocre Intelligence score, and not much practice with the Breach Protocol skill, you’ll be able to treat Access Points like ATMs. Every time one shows up on your map as a red diamond icon, interact with and breach it. With a little planning, it’s not hard to get about €$ 1,000 with just a couple seconds of effort.

Access Points are basically everywhere, so almost any gig or job you do will have at least one nearby.