The Best XP Farm in Payday 3: Level Up Quickly

Want to level up quickly in Payday 3 by farming the most XP possible in the shortest amount of time? Sure you do!

The missions within Payday 3 offer extremely rewarding payouts, allowing players to purchase new weapons and cosmetics, contrary to the XP rewards being very little. Ultimately acting very counter-intuitive, without the XP and levels, players are unable to unlock new content to purchase. This leads to players having to separate the money-earning and leveling system within Payday 3, forcing players to run missions specifically trying to complete challenges to earn more XP.

Update on 22 November 2023: We've updated this article with the latest Payday 3 XP farming methods.

Fortunately, some methods can be abused within Payday 3 that will quickly level up your player and allow you to progress through the ranks rapidly. There are no requirements for this method, meaning any player with an account can exploit this XP ranking method with absolutely no consequences. Despite being slightly tedious, this method will guarantee you thousands of XP that will level you up. You just have to have a little patience! 

Payday 3: How to Level Up Fast

This method features in the mission "Touch the Sky," which is the final playable mission within Payday 3. However, before heading into the mission, we're going to head to the challenges menu and find the "Combat" category challenges.

Here, players will find a plethora of combat-based challenges to complete, such as "Kill (x) enemies with a headshot using the VF-7s." These challenges aren't singular completion challenges. They each have three stages. After you complete ten kills and complete the challenge, it'll give you XP and reset the challenge to one hundred kills and then one thousand, for example.

This allows players to essentially head into a mission with that specified weapon kill hundreds of SWAT enemies, and complete these challenges, giving them an abundance of XP to obtain because the developers didn't intend players to farm SWAT enemies. Each weapon in Payday 3 has a guaranteed two challenges with three stages: kill SWAT unsuppressed and kill SWAT suppressed variants of each weapon, leading to a massive amount of XP to be claimed.

Payday 3 Best XP Farming Method Steps

To complete this method effectively, follow these steps:

1. Head into the mission "Touch the Sky" on Overkill difficulty
2. Run upstairs and into the vents, immediately walk to the end of the vent, and drop into the penthouse. 
3. Once entering the penthouse, immediately begin killing enemies, initiate the building's alarm, and wait for reinforcements to start flooding the building.
4. Run downstairs into the main lobby of the penthouse; opposite the bar is a toilet; head into the toilet and get cozy. This is where you're going to farm the SWAT enemies.
5. If playing solo, wait in the bathroom for your AI team members to head into custody. We don't want the NPCs stealing our kills. Just hide in the bathroom while this happens. 
6. Once the enemies begin flooding into the building, use the weapons with the assigned challenges and start killing the enemies. 
7. You must exit the bathroom and run around the dead bodies of enemies to collect their lost ammunition, this will ensure you're stocked up for the entirety of the fighting. 
8. When you feel you've killed enough enemies and completed the challenges, simply head outside the bathroom and wait to be killed. This will send you to the menus and showcase how much XP was earned during that specific heist. 

This method can be repeated for every combat challenge within Payday 3, allowing players to complete masses of challenges in a very small amount of time. Despite feeling relatively drained after an hour or two of XP farming, you will be at a significantly higher level, just as you wanted! 

Looking for more Payday 3 content? We've got you covered with a range of helpful guides below.