You can now appeal a wrongful ban in Grand Theft Auto Online, but your progress might still be lost even if it's successful.
With only roughly a year to go before the official release of Grand Theft Auto 6—Take-Two Interactive doubled down on a late 2025 release date in a meeting with investors—Rockstar Games is ramping up the security updates for Grand Theft Auto Online.
As part of the game's 11th anniversary celebration, Rockstar introduced BattlEye to Grand Theft Auto Online, a new anti-cheat software. It's clear that Rockstar is using this as a way to optimize the software ahead of GTA 6's launch.
By the time the PC port of GTA 6 is out, the online component will be safer against hackers — but that isn't all that Rockstar is trying to improve in GTA Online. In a new article on their support site, Rockstar has updated its ban policy.
Titled "Rockstar Games Online Suspension and Ban Policy," Rockstar confirmed in the article that it is taking appeals from players who feel they have been wrongfully banned.
The article explains how GTA Online suspensions and bans work. For example, if you break Rockstar's Community Guidelines or Terms of Service, you will receive an immediate suspension. If you continue to violate the same guidelines, Rockstar will ban you from all of its online services, which means that you'll have to say goodbye to all of your other accounts, like Red Dead Online. Rockstar will also wipe your progress, cash, and more.
If you believe Rockstar wrongfully banned you from GTA Online, you can now fill out a form. If you visit the form link, Rockstar will ask you to enter details such as your gamertag/ID, your preferred platform, which game you were banned in, the date of the ban and suspension, and so on.
It's up to you to convince Rockstar why they need to unban your account, so try to include photos for proof that you weren't doing anything wrong, if you can. It does feel like Rockstar is aware of the shortcomings of BattlEye — just days after its release, fans are already complaining of suspensions and bans resulting from the new anti-cheat system.
Unfortunately, if Rockstar has banned your account in GTA Online by mistake, it does mean that they will reset your account, so you'll lose all your hard-earned work in the game even if you do regain access after appealing it. It's still unclear if Rockstar can restore your progress if your appeal succeeds, but we'll update this information as soon as we know the answer.
For now, GTA Online players on the PC have plenty to look forward to before the end of the year. Aside from the expected holiday expansion, Rockstar accidentally revealed a PC port of Expanded & Enhanced, bringing certain features currently exclusive to the PS5 and Xbox Series S/X to the PC version of GTA Online.
