The fastest way to level up in ARC Raiders is to stop treating XP as a side effect of looting. Sweep dense container routes in a free loadout, finish every quest you can (they grant XP since Frozen Trail), and scavenge big ARC carcasses when you pass them. That combination roughly doubles the XP of a passive raid. You also need a realistic picture of the curve: the last 25 levels cost more XP than the first 50. Below are every XP source, XP per hour by activity, the level 75 cap and how many skill points you end up with.
Patch context: this reflects the Frozen Trail 2.0 update and Store Update 2.2.0, last checked October 2026. XP values come from the ARC Raiders Wiki’s Experience page and community testing. Embark doesn’t publish an XP table, so treat per-action numbers as close, not exact.
How XP and levels work in ARC Raiders
The cap is level 75, you get one skill point per level, and each level costs more XP than the last. Level 1 needs 5,000 XP, while the levels in the 50s and 70s cost 48,000-50,000 each. Here’s the cumulative curve from the wiki’s XP table:
| Level | Total XP needed | Share of the road to 75 |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 124,000 | 4% |
| 20 | 354,000 | 13% |
| 30 | 697,000 | 25% |
| 50 | 1,586,000 | 56% |
| 75 | 2,816,000 | 100% |
That table explains most “why did my levelling stop” complaints. Level 30 is only a quarter of the way to 75, and levels 50 to 75 alone take about 1.23 million XP, around 44% of the total. The r/ArcRaiders breakdown of the XP needed to reach each level reached the same conclusion when players first mapped the curve.
Every XP source in ARC Raiders
XP comes from almost everything you do topside, so stack sources instead of picking one. Values below come from the wiki and community testing:
- Time topside: 3 XP per second, about 180 per minute. You keep it even if you die.
- Searching containers: about 200 XP per basic container (bags, lockers, crates, Raider packs), even when it’s empty. Bigger targets such as heavy ARC husks are about 500 per search.
- Damaging ARC: XP per point of damage. The wiki lists 3 XP per damage against Wasps, Hornets and Surveyors, and 2 against Leapers, Bastions, Bombardiers, Rocketeers and the Matriarch.
- New ARC: the Bully is worth 500 XP to destroy; the Skulker is 200 to destroy plus 250 for scavenging it.
- Damaging Raiders: 5 XP per point of damage, and community testing puts a knockdown at about 500 on top.
- Discovering new areas: about 200 XP per new area, which makes your first Pendola Pass runs worth extra.
- Extracting: a Safe Return bonus that scales with how long you were out. Embark hasn’t published the amount.
- Quests: since Frozen Trail, the Frozen Trail 2.0 patch notes say completing quests and quest objectives grants XP, shown in the quest description.
Container searches are the only big XP source that needs no fighting and no ammo, and they give XP whether or not you keep the loot. And quests are now the largest one-off chunks in the game. If you’ve been skipping Shani’s quest log because the item rewards looked weak, that’s no longer a good reason.
Best XP per hour: activities compared
Our take: container sweeping in a free kit is the best steady XP per hour, and quests are the best per minute when one lines up with your route. The figures below are our estimates, built from the per-action values above and the pace our boosters keep on a typical 30-minute raid with queue time included. Embark publishes no XP-per-hour data, so read the ranges as rough comparisons.
| Activity | Estimated XP per hour | Cost and risk | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passive raid (looting lightly, extracting) | ~12,000-18,000 | Low | Mostly time XP plus the extraction bonus |
| Container sweep route, free loadout | ~25,000-40,000 | None (free kit) | 30-50 searches a raid at ~200 each, plus time XP |
| ARC hunting and scavenging husks | ~20,000-35,000 | Ammo and meds | Big ARC carcasses give several ~500 XP searches |
| PvP-focused raids | ~10,000-40,000 | High, swingy | 5 XP per damage plus ~500 per knockdown; depends on lobbies |
| Quest-chained raids | Highest when objectives line up | Varies | One-off quest XP since 2.0; amounts vary by quest |
Put those numbers against the curve and you get a realistic timeline. At a steady 30,000 XP an hour, 2.8 million XP is roughly 95 hours of raiding. Mix in quests and new-area discovery early on and most players we work with reach 75 in roughly 70-110 hours. People who quote 40 hours are either counting very well-optimised runs or forgetting the queue screen.
If you would rather not spend those hours, our ARC Raiders leveling help runs XP routes and quest chains on your account, with raid help and squad carries if you’d rather play alongside.
A levelling route that works after Frozen Trail
The route that holds up best right now is a container sweep with quests on top. In practice:
- Check your quest log before you queue. Pick the map that matches the most open objectives. Since 2.0, objectives pay XP too.
- Go in with a free loadout. The route is about searches, not fights, and a death costs you nothing but the extraction bonus.
- Pick a dense cluster. Buried City’s Space Travel Building, Hospital and Library run, or the Railyard on Pendola Pass. Open everything, including containers you can see are empty.
- Scavenge big ARC you didn’t kill. A husk someone else dropped is a few hundred free XP per search.
- Extract if it’s cheap, leave if it isn’t. The Safe Return bonus is nice, but running a full minute to a dangerous exit costs more time than it’s worth.
For ARC hunting runs, take a real kit and build it around armor damage. Our current loadout meta covers what our boosters bring. Explosives now do over 50% more damage to ARC armor plates after the 2.0 rebalance, which helps on Bullies.
A note from our side. When we started tracking levelling orders, our boosters had a habit of looting only what they wanted to keep and walking past everything else. Once they switched to opening every container on the route, empty or not, the same runs levelled noticeably faster without taking a single extra fight. It looks silly to open a locker you know is empty. It’s still 200 XP.
Max level and max skill points
At level 75 you have 76 skill points from levelling, according to the wiki’s skill tree page. Some guides say 75, and the difference comes down to whether the starting point is counted. On top of that, departed Expeditions grant up to 5 bonus points each, capped at 15 in total, so the ceiling is about 91. Embark has paused Expeditions until early 2027, so if you missed them, 76 is your number for now. Our guide on how Expeditions work covers the stash-value requirements.
- From levelling: 76 (one per level to 75).
- From Expeditions: up to 5 each, 15 cap.
- Respec: 2,000 coins per spent point, full tree only.
- 2.0 gates: the big nodes unlock at 10, 30 and 40 points in a branch. The 10-point node is a choice of one from two, and the 30/40 nodes let you take two of three.
That 10/30/40 structure is why levelling speed matters more after the rework. A build doesn’t come together until a branch reaches 30, and the second end-of-branch pick waits until 40. Our ARC Raiders skill tree guide walks through which branch to rush first.
Where this advice falls short
Three caveats. First, the XP per hour figures are estimates built from community-tested values, not measured by Embark, and the per-container numbers come from testing done before Frozen Trail. Second, container sweeping is the efficient route and also the boring one. If you burn out at level 40, the “optimal” route has cost you more than a slower one you enjoy. Third, levelling past 75 earns no extra skill points, and Embark hasn’t announced a prestige system. Once you’re near the cap, the Expedition bonus and Outpost upgrades matter more than more XP.
Frequently asked questions
What is the max level in ARC Raiders?
Level 75. The wiki’s XP table ends there, at 2,816,000 total XP.
How many skill points can you get in ARC Raiders?
76 from levelling to 75, plus up to 15 from Expeditions (up to 5 each), for a maximum of about 91.
What is the fastest way to get XP in ARC Raiders?
Container sweeps on a dense route in a free loadout, with quest objectives stacked on top and big ARC carcasses scavenged along the way.
Do you keep XP if you die in ARC Raiders?
Yes. XP from time topside and from what you did during the raid stays. You only miss the extraction bonus.
Do quests give XP in ARC Raiders?
Yes. Since Frozen Trail 2.0, quests and quest objectives grant XP, and the amount is shown in the quest description.
How long does it take to reach level 75 in ARC Raiders?
By our estimate, around 70-110 hours of focused raiding. Levels 50 to 75 take about 44% of the total XP on their own.
Levelling fast in ARC Raiders comes down to three habits: open every container, take the quests, and don’t spend ammo on fights you don’t need. The first 30 levels take care of themselves, and the back half is where the routes above save you hours. If you’d rather skip to the part where your skill tree is finished, our ARC Raiders boost page covers leveling, raid help, loot and blueprint farming, and squad carries.
