One rule gives you the whole PC calendar
Rust force-wipes on the first Thursday of every month. That is it — that one rule means you can read the next dozen wipe dates straight off a calendar without waiting for an announcement.
Facepunch ships the monthly update that day. The update changes the network protocol, so every server in the game has to update and wipe its map before anyone can join again. There is no opting out.
The time is 2 PM US Eastern. Because the US moves to daylight saving in March and back in November, that is:
| Period | UTC |
|---|---|
| March – November (EDT) | 18:00 UTC |
| November – March (EST) | 19:00 UTC |
Two cautions on the clock:
Facepunch has never committed to a guaranteed minute. Update releases sometimes slip by a few hours. Any countdown claiming to the second is a countdown to a convention, not a promise.
There is one date in the next two years where the pattern breaks. On 4 November 2027 the US is still on daylight time while Britain and mainland Europe have already gone to winter time — so the wipe lands an hour earlier on European clocks than it did the month before. It is the only 18:00-GMT slot in the table.
The dates
2026 remaining
| Date | UTC | Blueprints? |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday 5 November 2026 | 19:00 | No |
| Thursday 3 December 2026 | 19:00 | Yes — cycle reset |
2027
| Date | UTC | Blueprints? |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday 7 January 2027 | 19:00 | No |
| Thursday 4 February 2027 | 19:00 | No |
| Thursday 4 March 2027 | 19:00 | Yes |
| Thursday 1 April 2027 | 18:00 | No |
| Thursday 6 May 2027 | 18:00 | No |
| Thursday 3 June 2027 | 18:00 | Yes |
| Thursday 1 July 2027 | 18:00 | No |
| Thursday 5 August 2027 | 18:00 | No |
| Thursday 2 September 2027 | 18:00 | Yes |
| Thursday 7 October 2027 | 18:00 | No |
| Thursday 4 November 2027 | 18:00 | No — and the odd one out |
| Thursday 2 December 2027 | 19:00 | Yes |
The remaining 2026 blueprint-wipe months were March, June and September — a quarterly cycle.
The thing almost every schedule site gets wrong
Search for a Rust wipe schedule and you will find plenty of pages that list every single month as “map + BP wipe”.
That is wrong for most months.
| Wipe type | How often | What it deletes | What you keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Map wipe | Monthly, forced | The world — every base, deployable, ground item, and the map regenerates | Blueprints, Steam inventory, skins, hours |
| Blueprint wipe | Roughly quarterly | Every learned blueprint | Steam inventory, skins, hours |
| Full wipe | Owner’s choice | Both | Steam inventory, skins, hours |
The monthly update only forces the map wipe. A blueprint wipe is a separate thing that lands at the start of a new content cycle — in 2026 that was March, June, September and December.
Most months, everything you have researched survives.
Because servers can also choose to run a full wipe on their own schedule, always read your server’s own listing rather than assuming.
What each one actually deletes
A map wipe deletes the world save — the .sav file in the server’s identity folder. Every base, every deployable and everything on the ground goes, and the map regenerates on the next start, from a new seed if the owner set one.
A blueprint wipe deletes the player data alongside it — the player.blueprints files. Everyone restarts research from zero.
One thing neither wipes: companion.id, the small file that identifies your server to the Rust+ companion app. It is deliberately left alone, so a map-only wipe leaves Rust+ pairing intact. A blueprint wipe clears the player token database, so players may need to pair again after one.
Community servers set their own rhythm
Between force wipes, each server picks its own cadence. The common choices, in rough order of popularity:
| Cadence | Notes |
|---|---|
| Monthly, force wipe only | Blueprints persist longest |
| Weekly Thursday | The most common community cadence |
| Biweekly Thursday | |
| 2x or 3x weekly | High-turnover servers |
The standard pattern is map wipes on the server’s own schedule, blueprints only on force wipe day. That is why the server browser lists a wipe cadence next to almost every name, and why groups that want full control run their own server.
Console is a different calendar
Rust Console Edition does not follow the PC schedule. It is a separate product on a separate timetable, wiping on the last Thursday of the month at 18:00 UTC rather than the first.
None of the dates above apply to it. See the Xbox and PS5 guide for the console picture.
Wipe day, in practice
- Sketch and price your base before it happens. A design that was great last wipe can be cheaper to raid after a patch changes the meta.
- Wipe day is when the Item Store turns over — the new skins land the same Thursday.
- It is the best hour to be online all month. Everyone is on a fresh map with nothing.
- The Nuclear Missile Silo’s in-game countdown defaults to the monthly force-wipe timing, so you can read it off a monument.
Related guides
- Xbox and PS5 in Rust — the console schedule
- Rust Best Servers — reading each server’s wipe cadence
- Rust Best Base Designs — what to build when the servers come back up
- Rust Base Building Guide — wipe-day build order
- Rust Tech Tree Guide — what survives a map wipe
- Rust Best Skins 2026 — the new store set lands on wipe day
- Rust Beginner Guide — if this is your first wipe day