Rust Wipe Schedule: Every Force Wipe Date and Time
The next Rust force wipe is Thursday, 5 November 2026, because Facepunch ties the monthly Rust update to the first Thursday of every month and every server has to take it. That one rule is the whole PC schedule, so you can read the next dozen wipe dates straight off a calendar without waiting for an announcement.
The short version. Force wipe lands on the first Thursday of the month, in the afternoon US Eastern time, which is 19:00 UTC for the next one. It always deletes the map, every base and every item. It only deletes blueprints on the occasional months when Facepunch decides to force that too, and most months it does not. Rust Console Edition is a different game on a different schedule, and the calendar below does not apply to it.
Rust Force Wipe Calendar
Every date below is the first Thursday of its month. The Eastern clock time does not move, but the UTC time does, because the United States switches to daylight saving in March and back in November. That is why both 18:00 and 19:00 UTC appear in the table: planning off a UTC clock needs the right row, not an average.
| Force wipe date | Eastern zone in force | UTC | London | Central Europe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thursday 1 October 2026 | EDT (UTC-4) | 18:00 | 19:00 BST | 20:00 CEST |
| Thursday 5 November 2026 | EST (UTC-5) | 19:00 | 19:00 GMT | 20:00 CET |
| Thursday 3 December 2026 | EST (UTC-5) | 19:00 | 19:00 GMT | 20:00 CET |
| Thursday 7 January 2027 | EST (UTC-5) | 19:00 | 19:00 GMT | 20:00 CET |
| Thursday 4 February 2027 | EST (UTC-5) | 19:00 | 19:00 GMT | 20:00 CET |
| Thursday 4 March 2027 | EST (UTC-5) | 19:00 | 19:00 GMT | 20:00 CET |
| Thursday 1 April 2027 | EDT (UTC-4) | 18:00 | 19:00 BST | 20:00 CEST |
| Thursday 6 May 2027 | EDT (UTC-4) | 18:00 | 19:00 BST | 20:00 CEST |
| Thursday 3 June 2027 | EDT (UTC-4) | 18:00 | 19:00 BST | 20:00 CEST |
| Thursday 1 July 2027 | EDT (UTC-4) | 18:00 | 19:00 BST | 20:00 CEST |
| Thursday 5 August 2027 | EDT (UTC-4) | 18:00 | 19:00 BST | 20:00 CEST |
| Thursday 2 September 2027 | EDT (UTC-4) | 18:00 | 19:00 BST | 20:00 CEST |
| Thursday 7 October 2027 | EDT (UTC-4) | 18:00 | 19:00 BST | 20:00 CEST |
| Thursday 4 November 2027 | EDT (UTC-4) | 18:00 | 18:00 GMT | 19:00 CET |
| Thursday 2 December 2027 | EST (UTC-5) | 19:00 | 19:00 GMT | 20:00 CET |
One row is not like the others. On Thursday 4 November 2027 the United States is still on daylight saving time while Britain and mainland Europe have already returned to winter time, so the wipe lands an hour earlier on European clocks than the month before. It is the only date in the next two years where the usual 19:00 London slot moves.
What Time Does Force Wipe Actually Happen?
This is where most schedules oversell their accuracy. Facepunch has never committed to a guaranteed minute. The monthly build goes out during the afternoon in the United States, Eastern time, and each server wipes the moment it restarts onto that new build. Early afternoon Eastern is the pattern people have learned to expect, and the calendar above is built on it, but treat those times as the start of a window rather than a countdown to zero.
Two things follow from that. The update does not arrive everywhere at once, so your favourite community server might take the new build twenty minutes after an official one or two hours after it. And a delay is normal: if a monthly release needs a fix before it ships, the wipe slides with it. Anyone quoting a precise second is describing a habit, not a promise.
In practice, be ready in the hour before the time in your row, expect to be kicked when your server updates, and expect a queue afterwards, because everybody else read the same calendar.
Map Wipe Versus Blueprint Wipe
Nearly all the confusion about Rust wipes comes from treating these as one event. They are not. A map wipe is guaranteed monthly. A blueprint wipe is occasional, and it is the one that actually hurts.
| What it removes | Map wipe | Blueprint wipe |
|---|---|---|
| The world and its seed | Yes, a new map is generated | Yes |
| Bases and deployables | Yes | Yes |
| Inventories, boxes, loot | Yes | Yes |
| Learned blueprints | No, they survive | Yes, all of them |
| How often it is forced | Every month | Occasionally |
After a map wipe you start with nothing on a brand new island but keep everything you have researched, so you can be back in your old gear within hours because the tech tree is already open. After a blueprint wipe you start with a rock and a torch and no knowledge at all, and so does everyone else. That is why a blueprint wipe resets the server hierarchy and a map wipe only reshuffles it.
Facepunch forces the map wipe every month. It forces a blueprint wipe far less often, normally only when a release changes progression enough that keeping old blueprints would be unfair. So the honest answer to "does the next force wipe delete my blueprints" is: probably not, and you will hear about it in advance if it does.
Forced Wipes Versus Community Wipes
The monthly force wipe is a floor, not a ceiling. It is the minimum cadence every server is held to, and individual servers wipe more often on top of it. That is why two servers can both be honest and still advertise completely different schedules.
- Forced, monthly. First Thursday, nobody opts out. A server that refuses the update cannot be joined by anyone on the new client, so it is effectively offline until it takes it.
- Weekly. The most common community cadence, usually Thursday. Fast and raid-heavy, favouring players with a few hours free on the first evening.
- Biweekly. Long enough to finish a real base and get into electricity or industrial builds, short enough that one clan does not settle in permanently.
- Monthly. Wipes only when forced. Slowest pace, biggest bases, hardest to join late.
- No blueprint wipe. The map wipes on schedule but blueprints are deliberately never cleared, so returning players keep their progress. The forced monthly map wipe still applies.
None of those cadences override the first Thursday. A weekly server wipes on its own schedule and then wipes again when Facepunch says so, which is why the first week of the month sometimes brings two wipes close together on the same server.
Rust Console Edition Has Its Own Schedule
If you play on PlayStation or Xbox, stop using the calendar above. Rust Console Edition is developed and operated by Double Eleven rather than Facepunch, it runs on its own build, and it is not bound to the PC first-Thursday rule. This is the single most common mistake people make when searching for a Rust wipe date: they find a PC schedule, plan around it, and are surprised twice.
What is true on console:
- The schedule is announced, not derived. Console wipes follow Double Eleven's own calendar, published through the game's own news and announcement channels. There is no arithmetic rule you can apply to a calendar to work them out the way you can on PC.
- Official servers come in wipe tiers. The official server list is split by how often a server resets, so a monthly server and a more frequently wiping server sit side by side in the browser. Check the tier on the server you actually play, because that, not a global date, is what governs when you lose your base.
- Blueprint wipes are the exception, not the routine. On console a blueprint wipe is an occasional, announced event rather than something that rides along with every reset. Treat any claim of a fixed monthly console blueprint wipe as unverified unless Double Eleven has actually announced that specific one.
- The map and blueprint distinction is identical. The table above applies to console too: a map wipe takes your world and base but leaves your research, and a blueprint wipe takes the research as well.
So the reliable way to answer "when is the next console wipe" is the announcement feed in the game itself plus the wipe tier on the server you play, never a PC force wipe date. If you are on console and you arrived from a PC wipe calendar, the date you found is almost certainly the wrong one.
Crossplay muddies this further, because the console and PC ecosystems are separate in ways that surprise people. The crossplay guide covers what is actually shared and what is not.
Wipe Day as a Server Admin
Wipe day is the one day a month where your server either gains a population or loses one: every server is fresh at once, and players are actively shopping for somewhere to play.
To wipe manually, stop the server first. Nothing below is safe on a running server, because Rust writes its save on a timer and on shutdown, and it will happily write the world you just deleted straight back to disk.
Two details catch people out. The rolling backups in step three are the big one: delete the main save, leave the numbered backups behind, and you can end up staring at last month's bases. And a map wipe alone regenerates the same island, freshly cleared, because the seed decides the terrain. For a genuinely new map you have to change the seed, and the map seeds gallery beats picking a random number.
A workable wipe day routine:
- Announce it in advance, with the time zone and not just the date.
- Back up before you wipe. Not to roll it back, but because a bad seed on wipe day is far less frightening when last month still exists on disk. See backup and restore.
- Update plugins first, not after. The monthly update is exactly what breaks Oxide and Carbon plugins, and booting half-broken on the busiest day of the month bleeds players fast. See plugin management and Carbon versus Oxide.
- Check your config survived. Updates occasionally reset or rename convars. The configuration guide lists what is worth checking, and the command reference covers verifying it live.
- Put the wipe date in your server name. The browser is how people find fresh servers.
- Expect a load spike. Everyone joins at once, so performance tuning belongs before the spike, not after it.
Automation is worth setting up once: plugins for both Oxide and Carbon wipe on a schedule, rotate seeds and announce the next wipe, so none of it depends on you being awake at the right hour.
Common Questions
When is the next Rust force wipe?
The first Thursday of the month. The date at the top of this page updates itself, and the calendar above lists every force wipe through to the end of 2027.
What time is force wipe?
Afternoon US Eastern time, which works out to 18:00 UTC while the United States is on daylight saving and 19:00 UTC when it is not. There is no guaranteed minute, and individual servers wipe when they take the new build.
Does every force wipe delete blueprints?
No. The monthly force wipe clears the map, bases and inventories. Blueprints only go when Facepunch forces a blueprint wipe as well, which happens occasionally rather than monthly.
Can a server skip the force wipe?
Not meaningfully. A server that refuses the update cannot be joined by anyone running the current client, so skipping it takes the server out of service rather than out of the wipe.
Do console wipes follow the same dates?
No. Rust Console Edition is run by Double Eleven on its own announced schedule, and the first-Thursday rule does not apply to it. See the console section above.
Why did my server wipe twice in one week?
Because a community wipe and the forced monthly wipe landed close together. Weekly servers keep their own cadence and still have to take the first-Thursday update on top of it.
Where does the official word come from?
Facepunch publishes each monthly release and its notes on the official Rust news feed, which is where a forced blueprint wipe would be spelled out if one were coming.
Related Guides
Server Setup
Dedicated server setup and hardware requirements for a server that survives wipe day traffic.
Configuration
Configuration guide and RCON setup so you can verify and fix settings remotely on update day.
Maps and Seeds
Map seeds gallery and custom maps with RustEdit for choosing your post-wipe world.
Plugins
Oxide and uMod plugins, Carbon versus Oxide, and hosting modded Rust.
Wipe day is much less stressful when the update, the restart and the schedule are not your job. Supercraft's Rust server hosting handles the monthly update and gives you one-click map and blueprint wipes plus automated schedules, so the first Thursday is something your players look forward to instead of something you sit up for.