GTA Online has plenty of lucrative business options that you can go for to earn millions in no time, with some earning you much more than others.
One of the businesses that no one thought would become profitable in GTA Online is the smuggling business, commonly referred to as the “Hangar Business.” After the San Andreas Mercenaries DLC update, Hangars have become a great way of earning money thanks to various buffs they received.
A Hangar business is your gateway to sourcing and selling a variety of high-value goods across San Andreas. In this guide, we’ll walk you through every step of the process, from purchasing your own Hangar to maximizing your profits with savvy sourcing and selling strategies.
We’ll cover the ins and outs of sourcing missions, the most profitable product types, and how to navigate the challenges of selling your goods in both solo and public lobbies.
You’ll also get practical tips and tricks to streamline your operations, from efficiently destroying containers to locating hidden drop-off points in the heart of Los Santos. Plus, we’ll introduce you to Rooster, a new character who can help you passively fill up your Hangar, and also explore the potential of the High Demand Bonus for those willing to take on the risks of selling in a populated lobby.
Buy A Hangar
To begin, you need to purchase a Hangar. A Hangar should be a priority for every GTA Online player regardless of their business activities, as it is the only way to store your aircraft.
You can purchase two different Hangars at Los Santos International Airport (LSIA) and three at Fort Zancudo.
If you don’t care too much about Fort Zancudo entry, by all means, go with the cheaper option at LSIA. The cheapest one, LSIA Hangar A17, is available for $1,200,000 (base price). The most expensive one, Fort Zancudo Hangar A2, is available for a base price of $3,250,000. You also have a cheaper Fort Zancudo option for a base price of $2,650,000.
Most upgrades are purely cosmetic, but we recommend getting the Living Quarters (+$235,000) and a Workshop (+$1,150,000). The Living Quarters allow you to spawn at your Hangar, and the Workshop allows you to upgrade your aircraft, should you decide to do air missions while sourcing products, which is a nice option to have.
Sourcing
After purchasing a Hangar, you are ready to start your smuggling business. First, you need to source the products you will sell to make money. You can do that by going to your Hangar office and using the laptop. There are eight different types of products you can source. While each crate obtained sells for $30,000, each type has multiple crate bonuses. Some have a higher percentage bonus than others.
For example, if you source 3 Counterfeit Goods (crates), they will sell for $90,000. If you have 5 Counterfeit Goods, you will sell them for $150,000 with a 5% bonus. The 5% bonus is an extra $7,500, bumping the total profit to $157,500.
The bonus percentage keeps increasing with every five crates. So, the next percentage bonus increase will be at ten crates. You can have up to 50 crates per product type.
This spreadsheet shows all the bonus percentages. It is also worth noting that Ron takes 2.5% of the total amount sold.
The graph shows that Medical, Chemicals, and Narcotics are the most profitable products to sell, especially when you have 50 crates, giving a 70% bonus when you reach the cap.
The bonuses on Medical, Chemicals, and Narcotics crates also mean that you don’t even need to spend too much time collecting them. Returning only 25 crates will still give you a 35% bonus which is very decent.
Air or Land?
When you start a sourcing mission, you get two options. You can either go with a Land or Air sourcing mission.
If you are a solo player, we recommend going with the Land sourcing missions, as the missions are easy and less time-consuming. It can take anywhere between 3 minutes to up to 10 minutes to complete them. If you have a fast vehicle, you should be good to go. Usually, your organization’s Buzzard or even your Oppressor Mark II suffices. The Buzzard can be a bit slow, though. The Raiju jet is also an excellent alternative to Oppressor Mark II for Land sourcing missions.
Cooldowns
Another important thing to note is the cooldown period after you complete a sourcing mission. For each type, there are different cooldown periods. You must wait for the cooldown to end before you can source product again.
Each crate type has a base cooldown time, but it increases by 1 minute for every crate you source. The following table shows the cooldown periods for both co-op and solo players. We are interested in the solo cooldown periods.
When playing with friends, the number of crates you can source increases depending on how many players are doing it with you.
For example, if you have two friends playing with you, you have three players, including you. This allows you to source three crates during the mission, adding additional minutes to the cooldown once the mission completes.
If you have three players and source Counterfeit Goods, your cooldown timer will be 4 minutes (base 1 minute + 3 minutes for three sourced crates). If you are doing it solo, it will be 2 minutes (base cooldown timer). You can only source one crate as a solo player.
Rooster
Rooster is a new character introduced in your Hangar courtesy of the San Andreas Mercenaries DLC update. You can talk to Rooster and let him source the crates for you by paying him $25,000. However, he is not the best if you want to maximize your profits.
When you pay Rooster to source the crates, you cannot specify what crates you want to source. This can mess up your bonus structure. If you want to source only Narcotics, Medical, or Chemicals, you cannot specify them, instead you need to pay and pray. This is why we believe that sourcing through Rooster is a waste of time.
He is still a great option if you do not care about the bonuses. But bonuses are the reason this business is so profitable in the first place.
Selling
Once you’ve sourced the products, you are ready to sell and reap your profits. You must return to your Hangar office and access the laptop to sell your product. From the top, go to the ‘Sell’ tab to see the option to sell your sourced products.
Your sell mission will start when you click the ‘Sell for $XXX’ button underneath your product name. Once again, you will get an option to sell via either Land or Air.
Selling by land is easy because no matter how many crates you are selling, you will only get one sale vehicle. If you choose the Air selling option though, you may get up to two, three, or four sale vehicles, depending on how many players are in your organization.
Note, you must get to each location before the timer runs out. Fortunately, the time you get is more than reasonable, and should be able to easily sell all the crates within the given time.
Profits
If you sell 50 crates of Medical Supplies, Chemicals, or Narcotics, you can make $2,550,000 as a solo player. That includes the 70% bonus. It can take a long time to source all the products, but it is worth it. The consensus is that it can take anywhere between 5 hours to up to 7 hours to source all 50 crates as a solo player if you use a Raiju or an Oppressor Mark II.
High Demand Bonus
If you decide to sell the crates in a full public lobby, you are eligible for a High Demand Bonus, which is an additional 50% bonus. If you sell 50 crates of Medical Supplies in a full public lobby, you will earn a whopping $3,825,000.
If you have 18 players in a lobby, you will get a 45% High Demand Bonus (2.5% per player), and if you are in a lobby with 20+ players, you get a 50% High Demand Bonus (2.5% per player).
Selling in a public lobby is very risky. Make sure you scope out the lobby you’re playing in, and if you see any griefers or players fighting each other, do not sell in that lobby!
It takes a long time to source the products, and if a griefer decides to take aim at you, your efforts could go to waste. It is a high-risk-high reward situation, but we recommend selling in an invite-only session.
Hourly Estimate
Let’s estimate how much you can earn per hour, assuming you are a solo player doing land source and sell missions. We estimate that a player can take approximately 5 minutes to source a single crate using an Oppressor Mark II or a Raiju jet. This means around 12 crates per hour, giving them a profit of $360,000 (12 x $30,000). It will be approximately $540,000 with a High Demand Bonus (50%).
General Mission Tips
There are different types of missions you can get when sourcing your products. The land missions are extremely easy to do, even as a solo player. You get three to four types of missions, each requiring you to go to a specific location, grab a crate and bring it back to your Hangar.
Tip #1
During one of the sourcing missions, you are tasked with bringing back a container with a crate inside it. You can save time by destroying the container and picking up the crate.
The container is always reddish-brown. Use explosive weapons to destroy it and grab the crate. Get on your Oppressor Mark II or Raiju Jet to fly back to the Hangar.
Tip #2
When you get sourcing missions that require you to open up a shutter door to a garage, you need to find a generator box and destroy it. The generator box is always outside the building, somewhere around it. It will always be within the yellow highlighted zone on your mini-map.
Sometimes the generator is hard to find as it can be behind an object, such as a large container.
Tip #3
You can pick up containers while inside your vehicle.
Tip #4
Whenever you get a sourcing mission that takes you to a crash site to search for the dropped crate, stay inside your vehicle and drive around inside the yellow highlighted zone until a green crate is marked on your mini-map.
You can avoid fighting enemies by doing this and searching the site safely. If you are in an Oppressor Mark II or a Raiju Jet, you can do the same and take advantage of the height, as the crate will be glowing on the ground. It is much easier to see it at night time.
Tip #5
You get only one vehicle and ten drop-off points when selling your product as a solo player. You get 20 minutes to deliver all ten crates, which is more than enough time for you to sell all the crates.
When you start the sell mission, the only major distance you must cover is from your warehouse to the first drop-off point. The rest of the drop-off points are near each other.
You can also use an Avenger or a Bobcat to haul your delivery vehicle to the first drop-off point, but even driving would suffice. For context, I spent several minutes trying to find some drop-off points and still managed to deliver everything with 4 minutes left on the clock. That brings us to our next tip.
Tip #6
If you get the main Los Santos city as your delivery area, you must know the underground drop-off points. The points are mostly inside the sewer, which you can access by going through the tunnel entrance shown on the map below.
There are multiple (4-5) drop-off points underground, which can be accessed quickly if you enter through the right access point. There are two access points. One is the entrance near the casino (Access Point 2) and the other is from the main highway (Access Point 1).
The correct one to go through is the main highway entry point (Access Point 1), as it will take you through the whole tunnel, allowing you to deliver to all the locations one after the other and eventually leading you to the exit (Access Point 2).
This is where I spent most of my time figuring out where the drop-off points were, but I still managed to complete the selling mission solo.
That concludes our Hangar business guide. Feel free to check out our other detailed money making guides to maximize your GTA Online earnings.
