Every Rust server gets a forced map wipe on the first Thursday of the month, when Facepunch ships the monthly update at 19:00 UK time. That is 2pm Eastern in most months. Blueprints are not part of that forced wipe by default. Facepunch wiped them on every server once, in November 2025, and none of the 2026 updates so far have repeated it. Outside the forced wipe, each server runs its own schedule.
The next forced wipe is on Thursday, 5 November 2026. The wipe countdown shows the exact time left in your timezone.
What a wipe resets
"Wipe" covers two different resets, and server listings use both words loosely.
- Map wipe. The world save is deleted. Every base, box, deployable, vehicle and item on the map is gone, and the server starts on a fresh map. Your learned blueprints survive.
- Blueprint wipe (BP wipe). Every player's learned blueprints are reset, so the tech tree and research table start from zero again.
- Full wipe. Both at once. On a full wipe you start with nothing but the default recipes.
Server listings that say "BP wipe" almost always mean a full wipe. Skins and anything in your Steam inventory are never touched.
When the monthly force wipe goes live
The forced wipe is tied to the monthly update, which lands on the first Thursday of every month. Facepunch's own devblog called 19:00 GMT "the regular time" for the December 2025 patch, and the Facepunch wiki's server wipe timer defaults to the Europe/London timezone, Thursday, hour 19, which the wiki says lines up with force wipes.
The anchor is London clock time, not a fixed UTC hour. That means the UTC time moves with British Summer Time:
| Period | UK time | UTC | US Eastern |
|---|---|---|---|
| Late March to late October (BST) | 19:00 BST | 18:00 | 2pm EDT |
| Late October to late March (GMT) | 19:00 GMT | 19:00 | 2pm EST |
The US and UK change clocks on different weekends, so in rare years the Eastern time shifts by an hour. The case to watch is a first Thursday of November that falls before the US goes back to standard time (first Sunday of November). The forced wipe would then be 3pm EDT. The 5 November 2026 wipe is after both clock changes, so it is 19:00 GMT, 2pm EST, 11am PST.
Treat 19:00 as the earliest moment, not a promise. Facepunch does not post an exact release minute ahead of time, the release can slip, and community servers often take a while to restart on the new build. Plan to be online a bit after the hour.
Not every mandatory update is a wipe. The Christmas 2025 update went out at 19:00 GMT on 18 December as a required patch, and Facepunch said plainly that it came with no wipe and no lost progress.
Do forced wipes reset blueprints in 2026
No, not by default. The forced wipe is a map wipe. Whether your blueprints go too depends on the server owner, unless Facepunch announces a global BP wipe in that month's update post.
That has happened once recently. The November 2025 "Pivot Or Die" update wiped blueprints on every server and slashed research costs at the same time:
| Rarity | Old research cost (scrap) | New research cost (scrap) |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 20 | 15 |
| Uncommon | 75 | 30 |
| Rare | 125 | 60 |
| Very Rare | 500 | 120 |
In the same post Facepunch said most servers, its own included, do not BP wipe, and that this was why progression felt broken on fresh maps. When asked if BP wipes would become monthly, the answer was "maybe", with no commitment. Since then, none of the 2026 monthly devblogs (Naval in February through Livestock in October) announce a blueprint wipe. Some hosting blogs claim specific 2026 months forced a BP wipe. The Facepunch posts for those months say nothing of the kind, so check the devblog before believing it.
How servers pick their own schedule
The forced wipe is the only date nobody can skip. Everything between forced wipes is the owner's choice, and the common patterns are:
- Monthly. The server only wipes on the forced wipe. Popular with groups that want a long wipe and time to build big.
- Biweekly. The default biweekly timer wipes on the first and third Thursday. In five Thursday months, the gap gets split two weeks then one.
- Weekly. A wipe every Thursday (or whatever day the owner sets). Common on high-population and modded servers where progression is fast and a base is old news after a few days.
Rough split by server type:
- Official servers are run by Facepunch. They follow the forced wipe and, per Facepunch's own statement, do not BP wipe as a rule.
- Community servers run vanilla gameplay on owner-set schedules. Some BP wipe on every forced wipe, some only when they feel like it, some never. Read the description.
- Modded servers (2x, 5x, 10x gather, kits, plugins) usually wipe more often, because everything progresses faster.
Owners are not locked to Thursday either. The wipe timer can be set to any day, hour or timezone, or even a custom cron expression, so a server in Australia might wipe on its own evening instead of London's.
How to find a server's wipe schedule
- Server browser tags. Servers can tag themselves as monthly, biweekly or weekly, and the browser shows this. It tells you the cadence, not the exact day.
- Server name and description. Most community servers put the schedule right in the title or description ("Wipes Thu 7PM GMT", "BP wipe monthly"). Check the description, because the title often only shows the last wipe date.
- The server's Discord. Usually linked in the description. Wipe announcements, BP wipe notices and any schedule changes go here first.
- In game, at the Missile Silo. The laptop countdown labelled "REPOPULATION UNIT SURVIVAL TEST" shows the time left until the server's next wipe, based on the owner's wipe timer.
- End-of-wipe events. About a day before a wipe, servers with the default settings start endgame events: F-15 flyovers and Road Bradleys patrolling the roads with extra scientists. If jets start screaming overhead, the wipe is close.
One thing to keep in mind when picking a server: a weekly server that wiped on the last Thursday of October will wipe again on the forced wipe a week later, no matter what. If you join late in the month, count how many days you actually get before the first Thursday. Our wipe countdown does that math for you.