Best Businesses in GTA Online Tier List

Making money is the backbone of GTA Online, and when you want to really stack cash, nothing beats owning the right business (or even better, several businesses). With more than 20 business types in the game, you’ve got plenty of options, but not all of them pull the same weight. So to help you invest smartly, we’ve put together the tier list of best businesses in GTA Online for 2025, showing you which ones are worth your time.

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GTA Online Businesses Tier List Explained

Not every business in GTA Online is created equal, and some are simply more profitable than others. When you’re starting out you’ll want the best ones first. Later, you can experiment with others just for fun or variety. Before diving in, let’s look at how we judged each business and what each tier means:

1. Profit Potential: How much money you can earn.

2. Effort vs Reward: How much active involvement is required.

3. Solo friendliness: Can you run solo or need a crew? Does it require supply missions?

4. Upgrade Path: How much time/money is needed to maximise the business.

And here’s what each tier means. We’ve ranked every business in GTA Online and matched each one to its rightful tier accordingly:

• D Tier: Low profit, high time investment, or both. Often avoidable.

• C Tier: Decent entry businesses, but limited returns or high grind.

• B Tier: Good options that hold value, but not optimal for top-tier income.

• A Tier: Strong investments with high returns and manageable effort.

• S Tier: The cream of the crop. Best passive income and great value.

With that in mind, let’s dive into the full breakdown and see which businesses truly deserve your time in 2025.

Best GTA Online Businesses Tier List

D Tier Businesses:

The Document Forgery Office - Still the worst business in GTA Online. Even with upgrades, the payout hovers around 20k per hour, and the locations are often painful. At this point, daily objectives or payphone hits make more money. Only keep it to feed Nightclub production.

Arena Workshop - While it has unique content, it takes too much time and effort farming Arena Points for a decent payout, and there's not enough variety in the content. Also, nobody really plays Arena Wars these days, so most of the time you'll probably be sitting in half-empty lobbies. The only reason you'd want to get this business is if you like how Arena vehicles look.

C Tier Businesses:

High End Apartments - Good for new players who want to try classic heists, but once you unlock better money sources, these apartments do not pay enough. Use them to learn heist structure, then move on.

Facility - If money is not an object, you'll probably want to buy a Facility to mess around with orbital cannon and other cool stuff. For the rest of the players, Facility doesn’t offer anything other than Doomsday heist.

B Tier Businesses:

Cocaine Lockup - One of the best MC businesses in GTA Online. Passive, reliable income, but you must resupply or source. Keep it mainly to boost Nightclub stock.

Weed Farm - It got better after the Money Front DLC, but the payout for sell missions still doesn’t meet the expectations in terms of time and effort you need to spend on it (especially for solo players).

Bail Office - Average payout even with all upgrades, unless you grind bounty targets over and over again (which can be repetitive and boring).

Math Labs - With upgrades, it can push around 40k per hour, which is fine, but not amazing compared to newer content. Still useful if you already run an MC empire.

A Tier Businesses:

Auto Shop - One of the best businesses in GTA Online. It sits comfortably in A tier because you can earn over $400k per hour with autoshop robbery contracts combined (with most contracts paying from $170-$189k and taking about 20-30 minutes to complete, and the meta Union Depository contract paying $300k). Auto Shop unlocks every single car upgrade, no matter your rank and progress, and you can also get a small discount as a shop owner.

Bunker - A classic. Bunker can generate up to $60k per hour with equipment and staff upgrades. Additionally, you can combine ammunition drop-offs (an additional $50k) for a total of $110k per hour profit. The only downside for solo players is that selling a full bunker of products involves up to 4 sale vehicles, which can take a lot of time and end up badly in a public lobbies.

Arcade - Unlocks Diamond Casino heist, which is considered one of the best in the entire game alongside Cayo Perico. You can also make a small passive income with it, depending on how many arcade games you have ($5k per in-game day when maxed out). Additionally, Arcade includes a master control terminal, which is a good bonus.

Counterfeit Cash Factory - Very solid profit. If you own the car wash, you can make close to $500k with a full bar of product, and the net profit per hour is the highest of all MC businesses (close to $65k).

Salvage Yard - A great addition. Salvage Yard offers 3 ways of making money: Robberies, Tow Truck Service, and Office Safe. Stealing expensive vehicles is the most profitable way to make money, with a profit of up to $400k per sell mission that takes just about 25-30 minutes to complete. Additionally, mechanics in the salvage yard will continue to dismantle cars you brought even if you’re offline, which makes this one of the best businesses for passive income.

CEO Office - Even though the CEO Office is not that great anymore compared to some newer businesses, it unlocks other businesses, including Special Cargo storage as well as a Vehicle Warehouse. Those two are massive cash generators that make the CEO Office worth the investment.

Vehicle Warehouse - Takes a lot of work to set up properly and lacks the passive income nature compared to some other businesses.

Special Cargo Warehouse - Still one of the best ways to make money long term in GTA Online. Even though the grind can be repetitive with this business, you can use technicians to passively source crates of Special Cargo.

MC Club - Just because you need MC Club as a foundation to access all biker-related businesses, it makes the jump to A tier. MC Club also opens up additional activities like bike deliveries and biker contract missions, which is a nice addition.

Hangars - Good passive income when set up properly. Just pay Rooster $25k, and he will do all the work, sourcing crates for you. Medical Supplies, Chemicals, and Narcotics pay the most if you’re farming crates yourself, but you can still make millions if you’re sourcing random crates through Rooster with 50 crates sell missions (not to mention 50% bonus if you’re doing it in the full lobby.

McKenzie Field Hangar - Probably the main reason for most players to get this business is that it unlocks Oscar Guzman flies again missions and heist that pay out $500k on normal or $750k on hard difficulty, which is pretty solid.

S Tier - The Best Businesses in GTA Online:

Nightclub - Considered by many as the best business for passive income in GTA Online. It’s very easy to operate, sell missions are solo-friendly, and it can make lots of money passively. The only downsides are that you need to buy upgrades and own other businesses to maximize your profit (yes, even the ones that are considered bad can actually boost Nightclub’s passive income). With all this in mind, Nightclub can generate over $100k per hour.

Hands On Car Wash - Not only is it probably the most profitable business in the entire game, Car Wash also buffs Counterfeit Cash Factory by 35% and unlocks 2 additional businesses: Higgins Helitours and Smoke on the Water, which buff Air Freight Cargo by 10% and Weed Farm by 35% respectively. It also unlocks special missions and money-laundering operations that bring good and profitable content (you can make $400k in an hour), and the best part is that you can initiate it all through your phone.

Acid Lab - Acid Lab is easily one of the best businesses to make money in GTA Online in 2025. It’s extremely beginner-friendly, as you can get Brickade 6x6 for free, and all you need to spend money on is setting up the lab itself and getting upgrades. Acid Lab can generate over $100k an hour (not to mention 50% public lobby high demand bonus).

Agency - There are two good reasons to buy Agency. First is the Dr. Dre Contract missions, which pay very well and are fun. Second is Imani Tech, which gives you missile lock-on jammers and other car upgrades you cannot get anywhere else. The Agency also has a safe that fills up over time.

Darnell Bros. Garment Factory - This one surprised a lot of players. Regular FIB file missions pay well, up to 200k if you hit all the bonus objectives, and the weekly Priority File missions can go over 300k in thirty minutes. You can run it casually and still make very good money.

GTA Online Businesses Tier List Summary

Here’s a quick snapshot of our GTA Online best businesses tier list so you can see what’s actually worth buying in 2025:

Conclusion

That wraps up our GTA Online best businesses in 2025 guide. If you are just starting, get the Acid Lab or Agency, then move into Nightclub and Car Wash for passive money, and finally stack profitable A tier properties like Auto Shop or Salvage Yard. The more businesses you connect, the easier the late game becomes and the less time you spend staring at supply bars.

Once you’ve decided which ones to own, check out our Best Business Locations in GTA Online guide where we break down the smartest places to buy each property for faster access, safer deliveries, and better profit flow.