How To Make Early Money (Or Not Lose Money) in Cities: Skylines

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One of the biggest challenges for newer Cities: Skylines players is figuring how to keep their city afloat financially at the start.

Here are a few methods to pad your coffers and keep you from plunging into bankruptcy in the early game:

  • Be thrifty when building roads and early-game utilities
  • Lower the budget for services
  • Raise taxes
  • Keep up with zoning demands
  • Take out a loan
  • Build moneymaker parks (Parklife DLC)
 

1. Be Thrifty When Building Roads and Utilities

When you’ve got a brand new map, it’s tempting to start immediately laying out a grand design for your town using roads.

But roads come at a pretty hefty cost in terms of both initial build and upkeep.

 
At the start of the game, resist the urge to build long, costly roads that you won’t immediately need / Cities: Skylines
At the start of the game, resist the urge to build long, costly roads that you won’t immediately need.
 

So at the start of the game, think small!

Try to build fairly close to the initial highway connection that comes with your map, so you don’t have to build long roads.

Same goes for your electricity and water infrastructure. The build and upkeep costs for power lines and water and sewage pipes can quickly add up.

Try to find the closest spots where you can build your wind turbine and water pump while still getting the max output.

 
A more economical start with a small starting zone, and water and power facilities not far away / Cities: Skylines
A more economical start with a small starting zone, and water and power facilities not far away.
 

Even if the start of your town doesn’t quite match what you imagined your city to look like, keep in mind that you’ll have plenty of freedom to redesign and move things around when your city’s economy is stable.

 

2. Lower the Budget for Services

After building your starter town as economically as possible, you can tighten your purse strings even further.

The basic services your citizens demand, like power and water, come with huge upkeep costs.

When you have barely any population, the default budget (100%) for these basic services will far exceed the amount of tax income you earn.

However, you’ll also be producing more water and electricity than your fledgling town needs.

(The amount of water and electricity produced by your facilities is directly determined by budget.)

The solution: set your budget to the minimum that you can get away with while still keeping your citizens covered. At the start of the game, this means taking the sliders all the way to the left.

 
Access the Economy panel by clicking the money icon on the bottom right of the screen / Cities: Skylines
Access the Economy panel by clicking the money icon on the bottom right of the screen. Budget is on the second tab.
 
You can easily keep an eye on your water and power coverage by clicking on the water drop and lightning icons on either the info views panel or the build menu / Cities: Skylines
You can easily keep an eye on your water and power coverage by clicking on the water drop and lightning icons on either the info views panel or the build menu.
 

As your town grows, just raise the budget in small increments as necessary—just enough to keep water and power availability in the green.

Also keep an eye out for notifications about water and power shortages.

Later on, if you’re low on power or water, you can take the slider to the right past 100% to make your facilities overproduce—if, for example, you’d prefer to hold off on building a new power plant.

 
Here, the electricity budget is set higher than 100% to make our turbine produce a few more megawatts than it normally does / Cities: Skylines
Here, the electricity budget is set higher than 100% to make our turbine produce a few more megawatts than it normally does.
 

Use this same technique with the other services you unlock: police, fire, garbage, healthcare, etc.

Managing your budget this way can often mean the difference between making or losing money each week in the early game.

 

3. Raise Taxes

By default, taxes across the different zone types (residential, industrial, commercial, and office) are set to 9%.

You can raise your taxes slightly to get that little bit of additional income.

 
You’ll find the tax sliders on the first tab of the Economy panel / Cities: Skylines
You’ll find the tax sliders on the first tab of the Economy panel.
 

Be very prudent about this, because higher taxes can make existing residents unhappy (and lower the zoning demands, because no one wants to move in).

In fact, people may start moving out if their taxes are too high.

For most cities, a tax rate from 9-12% is a safe bet, depending on how well-covered they are by services (happy citizens are less likely to move out). A good tip is to raise taxes by only 1% at a time, and make sure people aren’t reacting negatively.

However, if you’re feeling mischievous, there’s the tax “hack”.

As long as your population growth is still in the positive, you can briefly raise taxes all the way up in all your zones to a whopping 29%.

After a couple of weeks, people will start complaining and start to move out, so monitor your population growth indicator, as well as any buildings complaining about high tax.

 
After a few weeks, your citizens will start to air their grievances about the exorbitant tax and consider moving out / Cities: Skylines
After a few weeks, your citizens will start to air their grievances about the exorbitant tax and consider moving out. Keep an eye on your population change number!
 

Once your population growth hits zero, you’ll want to lower taxes back down to a reasonable 9-12%.

But the few weeks or so of high taxes should have given your coffers a little bit of a boost.

 

4. Keep Up With Zoning Demands

Responding to zoning demands is an important part of keeping the steady population growth—and therefore tax income growth—that’s so crucial early on.

For instance, if commercial or industrial zone demand is high, prioritize that over residential, as people aren’t going to want to move in if there are no jobs.

On the other hand, don’t keep building commercial or industrial zones when the residential demand is high. This will often result in understaffed commercial or industrial buildings, which can end up abandoned.

 
If you neglect residential zoning demand, your industrial and commercial areas could have trouble finding workers / Cities: Skylines
If you neglect residential zoning demand, your industrial and commercial areas could have trouble finding workers.
 

5. Take Loans

If you find yourself short on funds for a service that your citizens are starting to demand, it might be time to take out a loan.

 
Need money for that new elementary school? Loans are on the third tab of the Economy panel / Cities: Skylines
Need money for that new elementary school? Loans are on the third tab of the Economy panel.
 

The following loans are available to you at different milestones:

Loan Milestone to unlock Loan amount
Silver Sunset Bank Little Hamlet ₡20,000
Global Credit Inc. Worthy Village ₡60,000
Pyramid Capital Grand City ₡200,000

You’ll have to pay interest, of course, so make sure to invest your loan money wisely!

Good choices to spend loans on:

  • Necessities like power and water facilities
  • Your first elementary school to encourage houses to level up
  • A city expansion tile if you’re out of space for zoning

There’s also a ₡50,000 Bailout Loan that you’ll automatically get offered if your money falls below -₡10,000 (but if you follow the tips in this article, you won’t get to that point!)

 

6. Level Up Your Buildings

Residential, industrial, commercial, and office buildings all pay more taxes (and house more families per building) as they level up.

So apart from zoning to get more and more buildings, another great way to increase your tax income is to encourage your existing buildings to upgrade.

Here are a few ways to do that:

  • Making sure they are covered by services (fire, police, health care, etc.)
  • Educating your citizens
  • Adding parks and plazas
 

7. Moneymaker Parks (Parklife DLC)

If you have the Parklife DLC, you can take advantage of a strategy that takes advantage of foot traffic.

Parklife park areas charge citizens a fee every time they go through one of your parks.

Your citizens are willing to pay this fee if walking through the park will cut their commute short, or allow them to forgo driving entirely and just walk instead.

Here’s how it works:

First, you’ll need to unlock parks by hitting the Tiny Town milestone.

Next, plan out a desirable pedestrian path and paint a Parklife park area encompassing it.

 
You’ll find the ‘Paint Park Area’ brush under Districts and Areas / Cities: Skylines
You’ll find the ‘Paint Park Area’ brush under Districts and Areas.
 

Place a park main gate (the small park main gate works too) on one end of your path and a side gate at the other end.

 
You’ll find the park gates under the City Park tab of the Parks & Plazas menu / Cities: Skylines
You’ll find the park gates under the City Park tab of the Parks & Plazas menu.
 

If there’s enough foot traffic, you’ll see the cash start rolling in pretty soon.

 
In this example, Robin Meadows park is little more than a pedestrian footbridge network connecting two residential areas that aren’t directly connected by road / Cities: Skylines
In this example, Robin Meadows park is little more than a pedestrian footbridge network connecting two residential areas that aren’t directly connected by road.
 
Because walking through the park is a shorter trip than driving through the roundabout to get to the other side, the citizens are willing to pay the fee, giving us a nice income boost at little expense / Cities: Skylines
Because walking through the park is a shorter trip than driving through the roundabout to get to the other side, the citizens are willing to pay the fee, giving us a nice income boost at little expense.
 
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Liz Villegas

Liz is a writer and photographer with a love for building and strategy games. Her spare time is often split between lifting, reading, drawing, annoying her dog Mr. Porky Butt, and squinting at stat tables on the wiki pages of whatever game she's currently playing.