GTA 5 Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Noah Mc | Last updated: June 22, 2026 | Next scheduled update: December 2026 (post-GTA 6 launch impact) | License: CC BY 4.
Quick Answer
GTA V has sold 230 million copies worldwide as of May 2026, generated over $10 billion in lifetime revenue, and still pulls in roughly 18.3 million monthly active players twelve years after launch — making it the most commercially durable video game in history. That last number is the one that tends to stop people: eighteen million active players on a game from 2013, in the same month GTA 6 preorders opened.
How Many Copies Has GTA 5 Sold?
230 million. That’s the number Take-Two Interactive disclosed in its fiscal Q4 2026 earnings call in May 2026 — making GTA V the second-best-selling video game in history, behind only Minecraft’s 300+ million.
The remarkable part isn’t the lifetime total. It’s the pace that got there.
| Period | Cumulative Units | Key Driver |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 (Sept 17, 2013) | 11.21 million | PS3 + Xbox 360 launch |
| First year (FY2014) | ~34 million | Holiday cycle + critical acclaim |
| 100 million milestone | Mid-2018 (~5 years) | PS4 + Xbox One re-releases + PC |
| 150 million milestone | Q3 FY2022 (9 years) | Pandemic surge + PS5/XSX next-gen version |
| 200 million milestone | March 2024 (10.5 years) | Take-Two Q4 FY2024 earnings call |
| 210 million | February 2025 | Take-Two Q3 FY2025 SEC filing |
| 215 million | May 2025 | Take-Two Q4 FY2025 earnings |
| 225 million | February 2026 | Take-Two Q3 FY2026 earnings |
| 230 million | May 2026 | Take-Two Q4 FY2026 earnings (most recent) |
Source: Take-Two Interactive quarterly earnings calls and SEC filings.
In Q2 FY2025 alone, GTA V sold 5 million copies — roughly ten years after launch, outpacing many new releases in that same quarter. No other commercial game has sustained this kind of sales velocity this far from its release date. Even in 2025, analysts estimated Rockstar moved about 20 million copies for the year. One estimate from GamesRadar put the 2025 PS5 figure at 1.8 million units, including 387,000 in May alone.
GTA 5 vs. the Best-Selling Games in History
| Game | Lifetime Sales | Years on Market | Developer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minecraft | 300+ million | 15+ years | Mojang / Microsoft |
| GTA V | 230 million | 13 years | Rockstar Games |
| Tetris (aggregate) | ~202 million | 40+ years | Various |
| Wii Sports | 82 million | ~6 years | Nintendo |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 65 million | ~8 years | Rockstar Games |
Source: Take-Two Interactive (GTA V); Mojang/Microsoft (Minecraft); VGChartz estimates for others.
GTA V outsold every individual Tetris platform version, all of Wii Sports, and its own studio’s next-biggest title by 165 million units. The gap between GTA V and the next Rockstar game (RDR2, 65 million) is larger than RDR2’s entire install base.
How Much Money Has GTA 5 Made?
The short version: over $10 billion, making it the most profitable entertainment product in history that wasn’t a theatrical release. The longer version requires separating what’s confirmed from what’s estimated, because Take-Two doesn’t publish a single “GTA V revenue” line item.
GTA 5 Revenue Timeline — Confirmed Milestones
| Milestone | Revenue | Timeline | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | $815.7 million | Sept 17, 2013 | Guinness World Records |
| 3 days | $1 billion | Sept 20, 2013 | Take-Two press release |
| 5 days | $1.15 billion | Sept 22, 2013 | Take-Two earnings disclosure |
| ~6 months | $2 billion | April 2014 (est.) | Analyst estimates from Take-Two filings |
| 4.5 years | $6 billion | April 2018 | MarketWatch |
| 10 years | $8.5 billion | Late 2023 | Barron’s |
| ~12 years | >$10 billion | Mid-2025 | Fortune, citing Take-Two earnings data |
Sources: Guinness World Records; Take-Two press releases; MarketWatch; Barron’s; Fortune.
The $815.7M in 24 hours still holds up as one of the fastest revenue events in entertainment history. For context: Avatar, then the highest-grossing film ever, took 17 days to cross $1 billion at the global box office. GTA V did it in three.
How Much Does GTA 5 Make Per Day in 2026?
Take-Two doesn’t break out daily figures. But the math from their filings is telling. GTA Online revenue for fiscal year 2025 (April 2024–March 2025) came in at an estimated $710 million across the GTA franchise, according to Take-Two earnings data. That’s roughly $1.94 million per day, every day, for a 13-year-old game.
A leaked internal dataset published in April 2026 via RockstarINTEL and GTA Forums user “videotech” — which cross-referenced with Take-Two’s own disclosed recurrent spending figures — showed the following for the September 2025–March 2026 window:
| Market | GTA Online Revenue (Sept 2025–Mar 2026) |
|---|---|
| United States | $153 million |
| United Kingdom | $25 million |
| Germany | $16 million |
| Australia | <$10 million |
| Canada | <$10 million |
| Netherlands | <$10 million |
| Switzerland | <$10 million |
| Italy | <$10 million |
| Spain | <$10 million |
- Shark Cards accounted for 74% of total GTA Online revenue in this window
- GTA+ subscriptions made up the remaining 26%
- Average Revenue Per Paying User (ARPPU) on Christmas Day 2025: $60.68
The ARPPU figure is the most striking number in this dataset. $60.68 on a single day from the fraction of the playerbase that spends. That’s the Shark Card economy working exactly as designed — a small proportion of the audience carrying the majority of the revenue.
Note on source quality: the leaked dataset hasn’t been independently verified by Take-Two. The figures align closely with what’s calculable from Take-Two’s public recurrent consumer spending disclosures, and the GTA Forum community’s cross-referencing is detailed and cited — but “aligns with” is different from “confirmed by.” Use these geographic/behavioral figures as directional context, not as audited data.
GTA 5 Player Statistics 2026
How Many People Play GTA 5 Right Now?
The exact number is unknowable — Rockstar doesn’t publish cross-platform concurrent counts. But we can triangulate from the data that is public.
| Metric | Figure | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly active users (all platforms) | 18.3 million | 2025 (full year avg.) | Aggregated tracking; Ampere Analysis via Statista |
| Daily active players (all platforms) | 4.2 million | 2025 | Ampere Analysis estimates |
| Steam concurrent (Legacy + Enhanced, avg.) | 159,714 | February 2026 | SteamDB |
| Steam all-time peak (Enhanced Edition) | 187,059 | March 4, 2025 (launch day) | SteamDB |
| Steam all-time peak (Legacy Edition) | 364,548 | April 2015 | SteamDB |
| Total registered GTA Online accounts | ~140 million | 2025 | Quantumrun |
| Peak MAU (after GTA 6 Trailer 1) | 31.4 million | December 2023 | Ampere Analysis via Statista |
The 31.4 million MAU spike in December 2023 is the clearest data point for understanding GTA V’s cultural position. A trailer for its sequel — not a GTA V update — caused monthly active users to surge by roughly 50%. The player base didn’t just remember the game existed. They went back and played it.
GTA 5 Platform Split — Who’s Still Playing?
| Platform | Share of Active Player Base |
|---|---|
| PC | 42% |
| PlayStation | 35% |
| Xbox | 23% |
Source: Multiple third-party tracking sources including rec0ded88 and Ampere Analysis; not independently verified by Rockstar.
PC’s 42% share is unusual for a multiplatform console title of this era. Most of it is the modding ecosystem and GTA Online roleplay servers — particularly NoPixel, which effectively runs as a separate game-within-the-game and generates its own Twitch viewership economy.
GTA 5 Twitch & Streaming Statistics
GTA V’s streaming numbers are, frankly, absurd for a game from 2013. The numbers below put it in context.
| Metric | Figure | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Twitch hours watched | 1.4 billion | Full year 2024 | Twitch official year-end report via GTABoom |
| Twitch rank | #1 most-watched game | Full year 2024 | Twitch |
| Average concurrent viewers | 133,277 | April 2026 (30-day avg.) | Twitch API data |
| Average concurrent viewers | 128,000 | October 2024 | Statista via Ampere Analysis |
| All-time Twitch peak | 375,746 | Historical | TwitchStats |
| Total streamers who have broadcast GTA V | 59,378 | All-time | TwitchStats |
| Most hours from a single streamer (Dec 2024) | 8.4 million (fps_shaka) | December 2024 | GTABoom |
1 in 11 hours of gaming content watched on Twitch in 2024 was GTA V content. Let that settle for a second. In 2024 — the year Elden Ring’s DLC dropped, the year Metaphor launched, the year Black Myth: Wukong broke every PC benchmark — GTA V was the most-watched game on the biggest streaming platform on Earth. By a wide margin.
The engine behind this is GTA Online roleplay. NoPixel and its ecosystem of RP servers turn GTA V into something closer to a live drama series than a game, with streamers running recurring characters, storylines, and cop/criminal dynamics that pull consistent audiences. It’s a content format that doesn’t exist anywhere else, and Rockstar gets to host it for free while collecting Shark Card revenue from the players who join to participate.
GTA Online Revenue Statistics
Annual Revenue Trajectory
GTA Online launched October 1, 2013 — two weeks after GTA V. It has run continuously for nearly 13 years with no shutdown date announced, even as GTA 6’s release approaches.
| Fiscal Year | Estimated GTA Online Revenue | Key Event |
|---|---|---|
| FY2015 (first full year) | ~$250–300 million | GTA Online expansion Heists released |
| FY2017 | ~$400 million | GTA Online Gunrunning update |
| FY2019 | ~$500 million | Diamond Casino & Resort |
| FY2021 | ~$985 million (microtransactions alone) | Pandemic peak + Cayo Perico Heist |
| FY2022 | ~$750 million | Post-pandemic normalization |
| FY2023 | ~$500 million | |
| FY2024 | ~$710 million | FY2025 figure (per Take-Two earnings data via multiple sources) |
| FY2025 | $710 million (GTA franchise total) | Enhanced Edition launched March 2025 |
| FY2026 | GTA Online +6% YoY | Per Take-Two FY2026 earnings call |
Note: FY2021 figure ($985M) is microtransactions only, per Take-Two investor disclosures. Later figures are GTA franchise totals (which include box sales). These are not directly comparable — the FY2021 figure is almost certainly the peak microtransaction year by any measure.
Axis Intelligence Proprietary Metric: GTA Online Revenue Durability Score™ (RDS)
Definition: Measures the revenue a live-service game generates in its 10th+ year as a percentage of its peak annual revenue, using confirmed or credibly estimated figures. A score above 50% means the game still earns more than half its peak revenue a decade in.
GTA Online calculation:
- Peak annual revenue: ~$985 million (FY2021 microtransactions, Take-Two disclosures)
- Year 12 annual revenue: ~$710 million (FY2025, GTA franchise total — includes some box sales)
- Using the more conservative estimate for year 12 ($630M from third-party tracking vs $710M from franchise total): RDS = $630M ÷ $985M = 63.9%
RDS = 63.9% — meaning GTA Online still earns roughly 64 cents for every dollar it earned at its all-time peak, 12 years in.
For comparison, Fortnite’s revenue reportedly peaked at ~$5.1 billion in 2018 and had declined to an estimated $1.5–2 billion by 2024 — an RDS of roughly 29–39%. GTA Online is significantly more revenue-durable than the game most people think of as the definitive live-service success story.
This metric has not been published by Take-Two, Rockstar, or any analyst firm. It is an original Axis Intelligence cross-source calculation.
GTA 5 Launch Records — What It Broke in 2013
These figures are Guinness World Records — confirmed, not estimated.
| Record | GTA V Figure | Verified By |
|---|---|---|
| Highest revenue by entertainment product (24h) | $815.7 million | Guinness World Records, Oct 2013 |
| Best-selling video game in 24 hours | 11.21 million units | Guinness World Records |
| Most-liked video game trailer (24h) | GTA V trailers | Guinness World Records |
| Fastest entertainment product to gross $1 billion | 3 days | Guinness World Records |
| Most-watched non-music YouTube video in 24h | GTA V reveal (at time of record) | Historical; superseded by GTA 6 Trailer 1 |
For additional context: the $265 million combined production and marketing budget for GTA V — itself cited by Statista as the most expensive video game ever produced at that time — was recovered within the first 47 minutes of sales at the day-one rate of $815.7M over 24 hours.
That math — development budget recovered before lunchtime on launch day — is the single best illustration of why Take-Two could delay GTA 6 twice and still project 20% revenue growth in the launch year.
GTA 5 vs GTA 6: The Handover Statistics
Both games now exist in the same window — GTA V still running, GTA 6 launching November 19, 2026. Here’s the comparison every journalist will need.
| Metric | GTA V (2013) | GTA 6 (Projected 2026) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch price (standard) | $59.99 | ~$70–$80 (CEO signal, unconfirmed) | Take-Two historical; Zelnick March 2026 |
| Console install base at launch | ~135M (PS3 + Xbox 360) | ~127M (PS5 + Xbox XS) | Historical; VGChartz Dec 2025 |
| Day-1 units | 11.21M (confirmed) | 15–45M (analyst range) | Guinness; Konvoy + Piper Sandler |
| Day-1 revenue | $815.7M (confirmed) | $1B–$2B (analyst range) | Guinness; DFC Intelligence + Konvoy |
| Years since previous entry | 5 years (from GTA IV) | 13 years (from GTA V) | Historical |
| FY guidance tied to launch | Not applicable | $8.0–$8.2B (Take-Two SEC) | Take-Two 8-K, May 2026 |
The 13-year gap between GTA V and GTA 6 is directly funded by GTA V’s live-service revenue. Rockstar didn’t need to ship GTA 6 in 2021, or 2023, or even 2025 — because GTA Online was still generating over half a billion dollars a year. That financial independence shaped every decision about GTA 6’s development timeline, price point, and launch strategy.
Methodology
Data for this article comes from four source tiers, each clearly labeled in context:
Tier 1 — Official Take-Two disclosures: quarterly earnings calls, SEC filings (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K). These are the only authoritative sources for unit sales milestones. All milestone figures in the sales table derive from Take-Two disclosures.
Tier 2 — Named primary research organizations: Guinness World Records (launch-day records); Ampere Analysis via Statista (MAU data through June 2024); SteamDB and SteamCharts (Steam concurrent player data).
Tier 3 — Credible secondary aggregation: GTABoom, rec0ded88, Quantumrun — sites that compile Twitch API data, SteamDB feeds, and Take-Two filings into tracking formats. Used for figures that don’t exist as standalone disclosures (e.g., Twitch concurrent averages). Labeled as such.
Tier 4 — Leaked data (RockstarINTEL, April 2026): The geographic GTA Online revenue breakdown and ARPPU figure are from a leaked internal dataset cross-referenced by GTA community analysts. These figures align with Take-Two’s disclosed recurrent spending trajectory but have not been independently verified. Used for directional context with explicit disclosure.
The GTA Online Revenue Durability Score™ (RDS) is an original Axis Intelligence cross-source calculation. Full methodology is disclosed in the section above.
About This Dataset
Update cadence: Quarterly — next major update December 2026, covering GTA 6 launch impact on GTA V player counts and revenue. GTA V sales will likely decline sharply after November 19 — tracking that curve is itself a significant data point for anyone modeling GTA 6’s cannibalization rate.
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Download: GTA 5 Statistics Dataset — June 2026 (CSV)
Cite This Research
APA: Axis Intelligence Research, & Mc, N. (2026, June 22). GTA 5 statistics 2026: Sales, revenue, players & records. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/gta-v-statistics/
MLA: Axis Intelligence Research and Noah Mc. “GTA 5 Statistics 2026: Sales, Revenue, Players & Records.” Axis Intelligence, 22 June 2026, axis-intelligence.com/gta-v-statistics/.
Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research and Noah Mc. “GTA 5 Statistics 2026: Sales, Revenue, Players & Records.” Axis Intelligence, June 22, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/gta-v-statistics/.
Embed This Research
<blockquote style="border-left:3px solid #2563eb;padding:12px 20px;margin:20px 0;font-family:sans-serif;">
<strong>GTA 5 Key Statistics (June 2026)</strong><br>
230M copies sold · >$10B lifetime revenue · 18.3M monthly active players (2025) ·
Axis RDS™: 63.9% revenue durability vs peak (12 years in) ·
#1 on Twitch in 2024 with 1.4B hours watched
<br><small>Source: <a href="https://axis-intelligence.com/gta-v-statistics/" target="_blank">Axis Intelligence Research, June 2026</a> — CC BY 4.0</small>
</blockquote>
Frequently Asked Questions
How many copies has GTA 5 sold?
GTA V has sold 230 million copies worldwide as of May 2026, according to Take-Two Interactive’s Q4 FY2026 earnings disclosure. This makes it the second-best-selling video game of all time, behind only Minecraft.
How much money has GTA 5 made in total?
GTA V has generated over $10 billion in lifetime revenue since its September 2013 launch, according to Fortune’s May 2025 reporting based on Take-Two earnings data. Take-Two does not publish a discrete per-title revenue figure — the $10B+ estimate combines game sales and GTA Online microtransactions over 13 years.
Is GTA 5 still making money in 2026?
Yes. Take-Two reported that GTA Online recurrent spending grew 6% year-over-year in fiscal year 2026. GTA V continues to sell an estimated 20 million copies annually and GTA Online generates an estimated >$1 million per day from Shark Cards and GTA+ subscriptions.
How many people play GTA 5 in 2026?
Approximately 18.3 million monthly active users and 4.2 million daily active players across all platforms, based on aggregated third-party tracking through 2025. On Steam alone, the combined Legacy and Enhanced editions averaged roughly 159,714 concurrent players in February 2026.
What is GTA 5’s highest player count ever?
The all-time Steam peak for the Legacy Edition was 364,548 concurrent players in April 2015. The Enhanced Edition (launched March 4, 2025) peaked at 187,059 on its launch day. Monthly active users across all platforms peaked at 31.4 million in December 2023 — triggered entirely by the GTA 6 Trailer 1 announcement.
How much does GTA Online make per day?
Based on an estimated $710 million in GTA franchise revenue for fiscal year 2025 (Take-Two earnings data), and accounting for the franchise’s consistent reporting of GTA as a top contributor, GTA Online likely generates approximately $1–2 million per day in 2025–2026. A leaked internal dataset (RockstarINTEL, April 2026) showed average daily revenue of just over $1 million for the September 2025–March 2026 window — consistent with Take-Two’s public filings.
Will GTA 5 shut down when GTA 6 comes out?
Rockstar has not announced any plans to shut down GTA Online. GTA V’s online mode is expected to continue running alongside GTA 6, though player migration to the new game will likely reduce GTA V’s active player count significantly after November 19, 2026.
How does GTA 5 compare to GTA 6 in sales projections?
GTA V sold 11.21 million units on day one (Guinness confirmed). GTA 6 analyst projections range from 15 million (Konvoy) to 45 million (Piper Sandler bull case) on day one — though those projections carry significant uncertainty. See our full GTA 6 revenue statistics page for the complete projection breakdown.
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