GTA Online Halloween event returns: the October 1–7 week stacks up to GTA$3,500,000
GTA Online's Halloween event returns for October 1–7, 2026: RockstarINTEL lists eight returning encounters — Slashers, the Clone Slasher, the Phantom Car, Cerberus Surprise, Possessed Animals, Ghosts Exposed, Jack O'Lanterns and Peyote Plants — with 3x GTA$ and RP on the Ludendorff Cemetery, Cayo Perico and Alien Survivals. Three flat rewards stack in the opening week: GTA$1,000,000 for the Weekly
Halloween is back, and week one stacks three flat payouts
GTA Online's month-long Halloween event returns on Thursday, October 1, 2026. According to RockstarINTEL's weekly rundown, the opening seven days carry three flat rewards that stack: GTA$1,000,000 for the Weekly Challenge, GTA$500,000 for completing five Security Contracts, and a further GTA$2,000,000 for clearing every Weekly Challenge between now and November 4. Added together, the three payouts are worth as much as GTA$3,500,000 before a single bonus multiplier is applied.
That is the clearest break from the weeks that preceded it. Last week's Business Rivalries finale doubled nightclub Goods Missions and nightclub popularity while most other bonuses sat at 2x; this week the top multiplier rises to 3x, and it sits on seasonal content rather than on a business.
The eight encounters back in the rotation
RockstarINTEL lists eight Halloween fixtures returning for October 1–7: Slashers, the Clone Slasher, the Phantom Car, Cerberus Surprise, Possessed Animals, Ghosts Exposed, Jack O'Lanterns and Peyote Plants. The seasonal cosmetics come back with them — Halloween masks, face paints, horns, bobbleheads and Casino decorations — the same package Rockstar has cycled through in previous autumns (RockstarINTEL).
The Cheerleader Massacre 3 T-Shirt is free through October 7 and has to be claimed from an in-game clothing store; it is the only piece of Halloween kit handed out without a challenge attached.
Where the money is: 3x on the Halloween Survivals
The multipliers are concentrated on Halloween activity. RockstarINTEL reports triple GTA$ and RP on the Halloween Featured Series (Slasher and its Ramius variant), on three Halloween Survivals — Ludendorff Cemetery, Cayo Perico and Alien — and on the San Andreas Super Sport Series and the Community Race Series. Bail Office standard and Most Wanted targets, Dispatch Work and UFO Business Battles pay double, as do Jack O'Lanterns and Ghosts Exposed.
The Weekly Challenge itself asks for two Bail Office bounties and pays GTA$1,000,000 plus a Green Vintage Skull Mask. The effect is unusual: the week pays players for the encounters rather than for grinding a business, so most of its income comes from optional seasonal content.
The rest of the rotation
The Kortz Center Heist takes the two new Primary Targets RockstarINTEL names, Chat on Fruit Juiced and The Downfall of Rome, with its first-completion bonus reset and an extra GTA$400,000 for finishing without dying — the same bonus structure Rockstar used in the September 24–30 finale. The FIB Priority File is now The Project Breakaway File, still paid at double, and the Salvage Yard robberies are the Cargo Ship (Bravado Buffalo EVX), McTony (Karin Everon) and Duggan (Albany Fränken Stange) jobs (RockstarINTEL).
The carousel resets around Halloween as well. The Diamond Casino podium holds the Lampadati Cinquemila, a GTA$1,740,000 Legendary Motorsport car, and GTA+ members keep their two spins per 24 hours. The LS Car Meet Prize Ride is the Vapid Dominator GTT, worth GTA$1,220,000, unlocked by placing top five in an LS Car Meet race three days in a row, while the Premium Test Ride is the Maibatsu MonstroCiti for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC Enhanced players (RockstarINTEL).
The Halloween cars are discounted, not given away
The week's discounts lean on the seasonal garage. RockstarINTEL lists 40% off the four Halloween-only vehicles — the Albany Fränken Stange, Albany Lurcher, Declasse Tornado Rat Rod and LCC Sanctus — plus the Albany Brigham, and 40% off Agency properties with their upgrades and modifications. A separate 30% list covers cars including the Benefactor Schlagen GT, Declasse Vigero ZX, Lampadati Komoda and Nagasaki Buzzard Attack Chopper. The Gun Van gives away the Baseball Bat and The Shocker outright.
That pricing detail is the one part of this week's Halloween content that is not a rerun of a past giveaway. In October 2025, Rockstar Actu flagged the Halloween vehicles as the ones available to buy only during the seasonal window; twelve months later the same four cars return inside the rotation, this time at 40% off rather than free.
How 2026 compares with Halloween 2025
The distribution of the encounters has moved. Rockstar Actu's report on the opening week of the 2025 event, published on October 2, shows a first week led by the Cayo Perico zombie survival and Possessed Animals, with the Ludendorff Cemetery survival only returning on October 23 — three weeks later — at triple rewards. RockstarINTEL's 2026 rundown has all three Halloween Survivals live from week one at 3x, with Jack O'Lanterns, Ghosts Exposed and UFO Business Battles already paying double.
Both years use the same framing of a month-long event. Rockstar Actu timed the 2025 edition at five weeks; in 2026 the cumulative GTA$2,000,000 reward runs through November 4, a comparable length. What changed is the front-loading — content that arrived gradually across October 2025 is switched on at once this time, which makes the first week of 2026 heavier on rewards than either of the two weeks that closed Business Rivalries.
The last Halloween before GTA VI
The November 4 cut-off is the detail worth keeping. It places the end of the Halloween campaign about two weeks before GTA VI releases on November 19, 2026 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, making this the final seasonal event GTA Online runs before the series moves to Leonida. Rockstar has kept the live game on a metronome since September — one new car per week, one free or heavily discounted property per week, a monthly event to hold it together — and Halloween is the last full turn of that cycle before the sequel takes the calendar.
