How to Unlock Escape From Tarkov Flea Market Fast

Escape from Tarkov is crowded with many aspects within early-wipe, some players focus on getting started on tasks, others want to create mayhem on Factory, and the rats of the game focus on building their loot empire. However, the smarter and more Tarkov "hardened" players will focus on trying to unlock the Flea market as quickly as possible. The Flea market enables endless opportunities within Escape from Tarkov, finally allowing players to purchase whatever gear they need, the materials to upgrade their hideout, and to sell their loot to other players. 

Players before unlocking the Flea market are held back by the difficulty of the vanilla life of Escape from Tarkov, resorting to standard-issued gear from their low-level merchants. Additionally, players are forced to hoard their loot in the stash to prevent losing money, this is because selling their items on the Flea market is far more profitable. 

To unlock the Flea market, players must reach level fifteen, therefore it's a race for XP. However, gaining XP at the beginning of wipes is incredibly hard because merchants offer minuscule XP for completing tasks, therefore, players resort to killing to gain XP. Within this article, we're going to share the best methods to unlock the Flea market fast!

How Long Does It Take to Unlock the Flea Market in Tarkov?

Unlocking the Flea Market quickly is a skill obtained by only the most hardened Escape from Tarkov players, forcing the newer players to struggle for weeks with their scav-issued ADAR. This creates quite a strange environment in Escape from Tarkov, the higher rank players will immediately result to their AIRFRAME helmets and SR-25s whilst the rest of us gobble in the dirt with broken AK-74 rifles damaged and malfunctioning. 

To unlock the Flea Market quickly it's important to focus on certain maps and tasks, unfortunately, looting isn't the priority until after you've unlocked the Flea market. Looting takes significant time on Escape from Tarkov, often driving players away from earning XP and cashing in tasks to earn money. However, there's no point looting millions worth of items if you can only sell them for a fraction of the value to the Therapist. 

To reach level 15 on Escape from Tarkov requires players to accumulate 161,000XP total, resulting in a minimum of thirty hours of gameplay to reach for newer players. Therefore we recommend you focus on these opening tasks:

• Gunsmith Part One 
• Introduction
• Debut
• Checking
• Shortage 
• Supplier 
• Acquaintance
• The Extortionist 

These tasks will develop your relationship and respect with the merchants, allowing you to open new avenues and complete other tasks and gain further XP rewards. Please reframe from constantly purchasing level-three armor, modding out weapons extensively, and buying items that aren't necessarily needed. This will simply hinder you from completing tasks because you'll likely begin to lack money which will result in no gear and lower survival rates. To complete these tasks, simple level 2 armor and a default SKS will suffice - play like a rat essentially. 

How To Quickly Unlock The Escape From Tarkov Flea Market

Contrary to completing tasks as a rat, we're going to take another approach in the map known as Factory. To gain significant XP quickly, load into a raid with your equivalent of good gear and begin to fight anything with a pulse. Players that are able to kill (for example) twenty scavs, two players, and Tagilla will likely exit the Factory raid after fifteen minutes playing with 10,000-15,000XP, therefore meaning it'll take between 11-16 raids to obtain Flea market. 

This method however is quite difficult to complete, but players that stay alive inside Factory farming scavs for nearly the entirety of the time limit are given an abundance of XP. There are a few recommendations I'd provide for lower-level players:

• Semi-automatic Shotgun that can hold 4-8 slugs (80 slugs spare)
• Level four armor 
• Helmet with high ricochet chance
• Grizzly medical bag or 1000HP worth of healing supplies 

It will likely get to a point in-raid where you're required to pick up scav weapons and use them due to lack of ammo, however, this is when you should leave the raid. If you die in-raid you're going to lose out on a lot of XP; it's worth extracting with fewer kills and more XP to be safe at these stages. Running this system with a friend makes it a lot easier, this is because they always carry extra ammunition and can use their supplies. For example, if your armor is destroyed you can convince them to trade for the sake of your XP progression. 

Unlock EFT Flea Market With Jaeger

Escape from Tarkovs merchant known as Jaeger offers plenty of high XP rewards for completing his tasks, even through early wipe and quest-line progression. This allows players to quickly obtain high amounts of XP from fresh wipes, sometimes granting the Flea market within the first day of the wipe, especially if you're well acquainted with his tasks. Although, you're going to have to unlock Jaeger as he isn't available by default, click here to find out how. 

Once unlocking tasks, Jaeger provides players quests on the map Woods, being the most disliked and frustrating map and the reason why nobody utilizes his quests early wipe. After unlocking Jaeger, follow the questlines and you'll unlock these tasks and rewards:

• The Tarkov Shooter - Part 1: 12,300XP (any map)
• The Tarkov Shooter - Part 2: 12,400XP (any map)
• The Tarkov Shooter - Part 3: 10,500XP (any map)
• The Survivalist Path - Unprotected but Dangerous: 5,600XP (woods)
• The Survivalist Path - Tough Guy: 7,000XP (woods)

These missions require players to use a bolt-action Sniper Rifle to complete a generally easy objective, such as killing three PMCs at less than 25m distance with a bolt-action rifle. Meaning it shouldn't take more than a couple of Factory runs to gain more than 12,000XP from the mission and additional XP from attempting the mission each raid. 

Our Personal Recommendation 

After playing more than nine Escape from Tarkov wipes and spending hours trying to play effectively, I've found the Factory strategy to be the most effective. Despite scaring more "quiet" Escape from Tarkov gamers due to the constant combat, you're able to hide from PMCs and begin killing scavs and player-scavs in the final ten minutes of the raid.

The reason why I believe it's most effective is due to that it's so repetitive, you begin to learn the spawns, and places of interest and are much more accustomed to Factory than anyone else playing. After a few raids, you'll find yourself comfortably killing all PMCs and wiping the floor with scavs. If you're able to obtain the "Factory Exit Key" it makes life a lot easier, however, the key is quite hard to find and requires research, however, having it will save a lot of XP and frustration. 

For more Escape From Tarkov news, be sure to check out our dedicated section or take a look at some of our Guides & Tutorials just below: