Valorant Penalties: RR Loss, Queue Timers, and Bans

Riot publishes its penalty ladder, and the durations are real numbers — not vibes. The one rule that governs everything is this: penalties are “less about singular violations and more about the sum of your history as an Agent.” There is no counter that resets, so two players who do the identical thing can get a warning and a two-week restriction respectively.

The penalty ladder

Penalty	What it does	Duration
Warning	Tells you the AFK / Queue Dodge system triggered	n/a
XP denial	You earn 0 XP for the match that triggered it	1 match
Rank Rating deduction	6 to 24 RR lost for AFK or queue dodge in Competitive	1 match
Team-mode restriction	Can’t join team games (Unrated, Competitive, Swiftplay); solo Deathmatch and custom only	3 minutes to 365 days
Game ban	Blocked from playing Valorant	7 days to permanent

The team-mode restriction is a single sliding scale, not a fixed sentence. A first offense is usually just a few minutes; repeated or serious offenses escalate it toward the 365-day end, where you’re limited to solo Deathmatch only. That is the reality players actually face, and it is what the timer on your screen shows — not whichever support-page wording you happened to read.

What triggers a penalty

• AFK: you don’t have to literally leave the keyboard. Standing in spawn and not participating counts. Riot defines it as “behaving like you aren’t there.”
• Queue dodging: leaving the Agent Select screen by disconnecting. It lands even if your router caused it, because it’s the select-screen disconnect that’s flagged.
• Friendly fire: injuring or killing a teammate with your agent’s ability.
• Boosting: logging into another account to win ranked for them. It’s bannable, and queuing with a confirmed cheater (“bussing”) can ban you too.

Competitive leaver specifics

In Competitive, if you’re absent for three or more rounds you lose an additional 8 to 12 RR on top of whatever your team’s loss costs — and it applies even if your team wins. Patch 11.05 tightened repeat-offender scaling, and Riot reported a 20% drop in Competitive AFKs afterward.

Remake protects the innocent

If a teammate disconnects during the first round, a remake vote (3 of 4 connected players) cancels the match. Connected players lose no RR, MMR, or XP and take no defeat on their record — only the disconnected player is penalized. Remakes don’t trigger in full 5-stacks.

How to avoid trouble

If you want out of a match, call a surrender vote instead of leaving. Server-side issues are forgiven automatically — if Riot’s infrastructure caused your disconnect, any AFK or dodge penalty from that window is wiped without you doing anything. A genuine ISP outage penalty can be contested through Valorant support. While a restriction limits you to solo Deathmatch, you can still grind agent contracts for Kingdom Credits — see our agent unlock guide. The RR you protect by staying in matters more than one bad game on the ranked ladder.