Escape from Tarkov Keys: Which Ones to Keep

The three questions

Does it have uses left? Keys show remaining uses in their description. A key at one use is a single visit, and a single visit is not worth a slot unless the room holds something you specifically need. What is behind the door? The answer is either loot, a quest item, a safe, or a shortcut. Loot rooms pay in roubles per open; quest rooms pay once and then never again; shortcut doors pay in time saved on every raid. How often do you spawn near it? This is the question that decides value. A mediocre room on a map you play every day beats an excellent room on a map you visit once a week.

The container problem

Keys live in a key tool or a documents case, and both have finite slots. That turns key management into a competition: every slot spent on a maybe is a slot not spent on a room you open every raid. Keep a fixed set per map. When you switch maps, switch keys. Carrying all of them is how you end up with no slots for the case that earns its space.

What to sell

Anything with no remaining uses, anything for a map you do not play, and anything that opens a room whose contents you cannot name from memory. Keys sell well early in a wipe when other players are still building their sets, and the price falls as the wipe ages — which means a key found in week two is worth more sold than hoarded. The money page covers the rest of the early-wipe economics, and the loot page explains which rooms are worth opening at all.

The keys you should learn by name

Marked rooms, safes, and the rooms tied to quests you are actively on. Everything else is optional. If you cannot say what a key opens without reading its description, it is not a key you need — and that test takes five seconds while a wasted slot costs you every raid of the wipe.

One habit worth building

Before you leave a raid, empty the key tool of anything you have finished with. Keys do not need to travel once their quest is done, and a key tool with three dead keys is three slots you paid for and cannot use.