Is There a Tarkov Wipe? Why the Question Is Obsolete in 2026

For most of Tarkov’s life the single dominant question was “when is the next wipe?” After patch 1.1.0.0 that question is obsolete, and players searching for a wipe date in 2026 are looking for something that no longer happens on a schedule.

The last real wipe

The final traditional full wipe was the 1.0 launch on November 15, 2025. Before that, Battlestate ran roughly half-year mandatory wipes where every PMC, stash, and trader reputation reset to zero for everyone. That cycle was Tarkov’s heartbeat for eight years.

Your main now persists

From 1.0 onward, the main realm is persistent. Your permanent PvP and PvE characters keep everything indefinitely — level, stash, hideout, quest progress, and the Kappa container — in both modes. Unless you trigger a voluntary Prestige reset, nothing you built gets deleted.

What replaced wipe day

Wipe day was replaced by an opt-in seasonal realm. Only players who choose to create a Seasonal Character reset, and even then it is a separate character, not your main. The seasonal character page explains the separate servers and the insurance rule that defines it.

Why this changes your planning

The phrase “save it for after the wipe” no longer makes sense. There is no upcoming reset to dump value into, and the economy you build on your main is the economy you keep. That also means older advice built around wipe cycles — stockpiling before a reset, rushing level 15 in the first week — needs rereading against the persistent model and the economy changes that hit every mode. Battlestate’s leadership described the replacement as a separate realm for players who still want the wipe experience — starting from scratch alongside everyone else in the season — without forcing it on those who prefer a persistent world. That framing is the cleanest way to understand the split. A Prestige reset remains the one voluntary way to start a character over.