Quick answer: An Air Freight Cargo crate is worth GTA$30,000 at full stock — the base value is GTA$10,000, and Rockstar permanently tripled sell-mission payouts with Los Santos Drug Wars. A full 50-crate load of Narcotics, Chemicals or Medical Supplies earns the +70% full-capacity bonus: GTA$1,500,000 base → GTA$2,550,000 gross, minus Ron's 5% cut → GTA$2,422,500 net. Own Higgins Helitours and that rises to GTA$2,664,750. Sourcing crates is free, which makes the Hangar the highest-margin cargo business in the game. The "GTA$700,000 per hour" figure you see quoted is real only if you stagger three cargo types to dodge cooldowns — grinding one type nets closer to GTA$500,000–600,000 per hour.
The Hangar is the most misquoted business in GTA Online. Search "hangar payouts" and you'll find pages claiming GTA$30,000 is the base crate value and that 50 crates pays GTA$2,550,000 flat — they've read a pre-buff sell screen and a post-buff multiplier and mashed them together. Others quote Ron's cut as capped at GTA$42,500, which hasn't been true for years.
This guide prices the whole business from the actual numbers: every sale bonus tier, every source cooldown, the five Hangar prices, and the one GTA$1,900,000 purchase that permanently raises your crate value by 10%. Then the part that matters — whether 700k/hr is a real number or forum folklore.
How much is an Air Freight Cargo crate actually worth?
GTA$30,000 per crate at full capacity. Here is where that number comes from, because the arithmetic is the single most-botched fact in this niche.
The base value of an Air Freight Cargo crate is GTA$10,000. That is what the in-game Sell tab displayed at launch and why three crates showed a "Sell All Cargo GTA$30,000" total. Then, in a pre-release Newswire post in December 2022, Rockstar announced that payouts on Smuggler's sell missions would be permanently tripled — a change that shipped with the Los Santos Drug Wars update on December 13, 2022. The changelog records it plainly: Air Freight Cargo Sell Missions payouts have been permanently tripled.
GTA$10,000 × 3 = GTA$30,000 per crate today. Before any bonuses.
That screenshot is the source of the confusion. It is a pre-buff capture, so it reads GTA$10,000 per crate. Every content farm that scraped it and then applied the tripling multiplier on top of GTA$30,000 ended up publishing a 3× inflated table.
Your Hangar holds 50 crates across 8 contraband types. That caps a single full sale at GTA$1,500,000 before bonuses — and the bonuses are where the business actually earns.
What are the Air Freight Cargo sale bonuses?
Free Trade Shipping Co. pays a stacking bonus based on how many crates of a type you sell at once, and the rate depends on which type. The wiki's Free Trade Shipping Co. entry lists three bands:
Tier 1 — Narcotics, Chemicals, Medical Supplies: +35% for every 25 crates, +70% at the full 50.
Tier 2 — Animal Materials, Art & Antiques, Jewelry & Gemstones: +12% for every 10 crates, +60% at the full 50.
Tier 3 — Tobacco & Alcohol, Counterfeit Goods: +5% for every 5 crates, +50% at the full 50.
Run that against GTA$30,000 a crate and subtract Ron Jakowski's 5% broker cut, and the full-stock ceiling for each band looks like this:
| Cargo tier | Full-50 bonus | Gross payout | Net after Ron's 5% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Narcotics / Chemicals / Medical Supplies | +70% | GTA$2,550,000 | GTA$2,422,500 |
| Animal Materials / Art & Antiques / Jewelry | +60% | GTA$2,400,000 | GTA$2,280,000 |
| Tobacco & Alcohol / Counterfeit Goods | +50% | GTA$2,250,000 | GTA$2,137,500 |
The spread between best and worst band is only GTA$285,000 — about 12%. Hold that thought, because the cooldowns do not have a 12% spread, they have a 40% spread, and that inverts the ranking once you measure per hour instead of per sale.
A half-stock sale is worth checking too: 25 Tier 1 crates earns the +35% band, so GTA$750,000 × 1.35 = GTA$1,012,500 gross, GTA$961,875 net. That lines up almost exactly with the ~GTA$1,000,000 figure players report for a 25-crate narcotics run, which is a useful sanity check that the GTA$30,000 crate value is correct.
What makes the Hangar different from Special Cargo?
Sourcing is free.
That one difference is why the Hangar out-earns the CEO warehouse per crate. In Special Cargo you buy crates before you sell them, so your margin is the spread. Air Freight Cargo missions have you steal the product — from cargo planes, rooftop drops, Merryweather jets, salvage sites, rival bases and Titan rendezvous — at zero acquisition cost. Gross revenue is net revenue, minus only Ron's 5%.
The first mission is always the same setup job: steal a Mogul bomber from the Lost MC. Finish it and Ron hands you 3 random crates for free.
There is a second, quieter payoff most guides skip. Completing 42 source missions unlocks discounted trade prices on 14 aircraft, released in multiples of three: 3 missions for the Ultralight, 6 for the Rogue, 9 for the Alpha-Z1, 12 for the Havok, 15 for the LF-22 Starling, 18 for the V-65 Molotok, 21 for the Tula, 24 for the RM-10 Bombushka, 27 for the Howard NX-25, 30 for the Mogul, 33 for the Pyro, 36 for the Seabreeze, 39 for the P-45 Nokota and 42 for the FH-1 Hunter. If you were buying any of those at list price, the Hangar grind pays for itself twice.
How do source cooldowns work — and how do you beat them?
Every source mission puts the cargo type you just collected on a timer. The length depends on how many crates that mission delivered:
| Cargo type | 1 crate | 2 crates | 3 crates | 4 crates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Narcotics / Chemicals / Medical Supplies | 4 min | 5 min | 6 min | 7 min |
| Animal Materials / Art & Antiques / Jewelry | 3 min | 4 min | 5 min | 6 min |
| Tobacco & Alcohol / Counterfeit Goods | 2 min | 3 min | 4 min | 5 min |
Now the line that turns this business from mediocre to elite, straight from the wiki's Air Freight Cargo page: "the timer only applies to the cargo that was collected during the previous mission, and another type of cargo can be stolen immediately."
The cooldown is per type, not per business. So you never wait. Pull a 4-crate Narcotics run, then immediately a Chemicals run, then Medical Supplies, and by the time you loop back to Narcotics the 7 minutes have already elapsed during the other two missions. Three Tier 1 types rotated back-to-back means your only real bottleneck is mission travel time.
That is the entire answer to the 700k/hr question, and it's why the same business gets reported at wildly different rates. One player grinds Narcotics only, eats a 7-minute wall after every mission, and lands around GTA$500,000–600,000 per hour. Another staggers three types, never idles, and clears the GTA$700,000+ per hour the forums argue about. Same Hangar, same payouts, completely different throughput.
Rockstar also sells you a shortcut. Rooster McCraw, added in San Andreas Mercenaries, sources 1 or 2 crates for a GTA$25,000 fee. At the full +70% bonus a Tier 1 crate is worth GTA$51,000 gross, so paying GTA$25,000 to skip a mission is strongly profitable — and it is the cheapest way to top off the last few slots when your source missions keep handing you single crates.
Which Hangar should you buy?
There are five, and the price gap between cheapest and most expensive is over GTA$2,000,000 for identical cargo capacity.
- LSIA Hangar A17 — GTA$1,200,000 (the correct answer for almost everyone)
- LSIA Hangar 1 — GTA$1,525,000
- Fort Zancudo Hangar 3497 — GTA$2,085,000
- Fort Zancudo Hangar 3499 — GTA$2,650,000
- Fort Zancudo Hangar A2 — GTA$3,250,000
Cargo capacity is 50 crates in every one of them. What the extra GTA$2,050,000 at Fort Zancudo buys you is low-level military base clearance — you can fly in and out of Zancudo without the airspace alerting the base, and that clearance extends to your Organization or MC members. Genuinely useful if you live in jets. Worth nothing at all to a cargo grinder.
LSIA A17 is the pick: cheapest entry, sits on the civilian airport so sell-mission spawns are central, and it banks the same GTA$2,422,500 as the GTA$3,250,000 option. Buy A17, put the saved GTA$2,050,000 into the bonus below.
Aircraft storage is separate from cargo: 20 total floor slots, allocated as 12 small, 5 medium, 2 large or 1 extra-large. Since March 4, 2025 you get +15 extra slots if you also own the McKenzie Field Hangar. Every Hangar ships with a complimentary Cuban 800.
Is Higgins Helitours worth GTA$1,900,000 for the Air Freight bonus?
Yes, if you intend to run the Hangar more than eight times.
Higgins Helitours is a GTA$900,000 money-laundering front from the Money Fronts update, parked on Shank Street in La Puerta. It is gated: you can only buy it after you own the Hands On Car Wash (GTA$1,000,000), so the true cost of entry is GTA$1,900,000.
Rockstar's own title update notes for June 17, 2025 spell out what you get:
"In addition to money laundering operations, Higgins Helitours owners will gain access to the following bonuses: A bonus to Air Freight Cargo missions. Ability to spawn owned helicopters at the business, including a new Higgins Maverick which is included as part of the business purchase."
The bonus is +10% Air Freight Cargo product value, and it only applies if you own a Hangar. Applied to the crate value, a full Tier 1 load becomes GTA$33,000 a crate: 50 crates = GTA$1,650,000 base, +70% = GTA$2,805,000 gross, minus 5% = GTA$2,664,750 net.
That is +GTA$242,250 per full sale. At GTA$1,900,000 to unlock, Helitours pays itself back in 7.8 full Hangar sales and is pure upside forever after. For a player already running cargo weekly, it is one of the best-value purchases on the list of GTA Online businesses worth owning — and the Car Wash it's gated behind separately boosts Counterfeit Cash Factory product value by 35%.
What's the fastest way to run a full Hangar cycle?
Sell missions run on a 20-minute timer (30 on some variants), the mission type is random, and difficulty does not scale with how much you're selling — a 50-crate sale is no harder than a 5-crate one. Which means there is never a reason to sell small out of fear. Sell small only for cash flow.
The ladder that experienced grinders use works like this: fill to 25 crates of one Tier 1 type and sell to bank the +35% band early, then rebuild and climb to a full 50 before the next sale. Many split it finer — selling at 25, then stacking 35, 40, 45 and finally 50 — so the business is constantly producing while still capturing a bonus band on every delivery.
Three rules make the difference:
- Rotate three Tier 1 types so no cooldown is ever blocking you. Narcotics, Chemicals, Medical Supplies.
- Take 4-crate missions when offered — the cooldown penalty is 7 minutes for four crates versus 4 minutes for one, which is a much better rate per crate.
- Buy McCraw's crates to finish a stack. GTA$25,000 to turn a 48/50 into 50/50 unlocks the +70% band on the entire load.
Combined with a Helitours bonus and a central LSIA Hangar, a disciplined staggered session is what actually produces the GTA$700,000-per-hour figure people argue about — and that is comfortably ahead of a Nightclub's passive accrual. Grind one type and ignore the stagger, and you'll land nearer GTA$500,000.
Want the GTA$1,900,000 for Helitours and the Hangar without a week of source missions? The Hangar is the best return in the game once it's running — the problem is the capital to start it.
- GTA 5 Money — fast & safe — fund the Hangar, the Car Wash and Higgins Helitours in one go and start on the +10% bonus immediately
- GTA 5 Account Boost — rank and RP handled so CEO/MC and the aircraft trade prices are already unlocked
- GTA 5 Modded Cars — rare rides delivered, so the 42-mission aircraft grind isn't your only garage plan
FAQ
How much does a full Hangar sale pay in GTA Online? GTA$2,422,500 net for 50 crates of Narcotics, Chemicals or Medical Supplies — GTA$1,500,000 base, +70% full-capacity bonus for GTA$2,550,000 gross, minus Ron's 5% cut. With Higgins Helitours it rises to GTA$2,664,750.
Is an Air Freight Cargo crate worth GTA$30,000 or GTA$10,000? GTA$30,000. The base value is GTA$10,000, but Rockstar permanently tripled Air Freight Cargo sell-mission payouts with the Los Santos Drug Wars update in December 2022. Guides showing GTA$10,000 are quoting a pre-2022 sell screen.
Which Hangar is best for making money? LSIA Hangar A17 at GTA$1,200,000. All five Hangars store the same 50 crates, so the cheapest one earns identical payouts. The Fort Zancudo Hangars cost up to GTA$3,250,000 and the only real extra is low-level military base clearance, which does nothing for cargo.
Can you really make GTA$700,000 an hour from the Hangar? Yes, but only by staggering cargo types. Source cooldowns apply per cargo type, not to the business, so rotating Narcotics into Chemicals into Medical Supplies means you never wait out a timer. Grinding a single type and eating every cooldown puts you closer to GTA$500,000–600,000 per hour.
Do you have to buy Air Freight Cargo crates? No. Unlike Special Cargo, every Air Freight crate is stolen for free on a source mission, so the sale price is also your profit. The only optional cost is Rooster McCraw's GTA$25,000 fee to have 1 or 2 crates delivered for you.
Does Higgins Helitours boost the Hangar? Yes — +10% Air Freight Cargo product value, but only while you own a Hangar. Helitours costs GTA$900,000 and is locked behind the GTA$1,000,000 Hands On Car Wash, so the real cost is GTA$1,900,000, recovered after roughly eight full-stock sales.
How many source missions do you need for all the aircraft trade prices? 42. Discounts unlock in multiples of three, starting with the Ultralight at 3 missions and ending with the FH-1 Hunter at 42.
