Short answer: a CS2 trade up contract turns 10 skins of one rarity into 1 skin of the next rarity (or 5 Covert skins into a knife or gloves). Each input gives its collection an equal share of the roll, split evenly between that collection’s next-rarity skins, and the result’s float is the average normalised float of the inputs mapped onto the result’s float range. A contract is worth signing only when its expected value after the marketplace fee is higher than what the inputs cost.
Trade up contracts are the only way in Counter-Strike 2 to turn skins you already own into a skin of a higher rarity. Done blindly they are a gamble; done with the maths they can be a repeatable, positive-expected-value strategy. This guide explains every rule that matters and shows how to use our free CS2 trade up calculator to check a contract before you sign it.
A trade up contract takes exactly ten skins and returns one skin. All ten inputs must be the same rarity, and the output is always one rarity higher. Inputs must be either all StatTrak™ or all normal. Knives, gloves and stickers cannot be used as inputs. Souvenir skins can be used since the May 22, 2026 update, but their stickers and Souvenir status are removed and the result is a normal skin.
The output is chosen from the collections your inputs belong to – never from anywhere else. That single rule is what makes trade ups predictable: if you know your inputs, you know every possible result.
| You put in 10× | You get 1× |
|---|---|
| Consumer Grade | Industrial Grade |
| Industrial Grade | Mil-Spec Grade |
| Mil-Spec Grade | Restricted |
| Restricted | Classified |
| Classified | Covert |
Covert is the top of the standard 10-skin ladder, and collections that have no skin at the next rarity cannot contribute a valid outcome. Since the CS2 update of October 22, 2025 there is one more step: 5 Covert skins can be traded up into a knife or gloves (see section 9).
Think of it as a raffle. Each input gives its collection one ticket, so ten inputs means ten tickets. A collection wins with probability equal to its share of the tickets, and then one of its next-tier skins is chosen with equal chance.
You use 8 skins from a collection with two Classified skins and 2 skins from a collection with three Classified skins. Each of the first two outcomes has 0.8 ÷ 2 = 40%. Each of the other three has 0.2 ÷ 3 ≈ 6.67%. The calculator shows these numbers automatically for any mix.
Counter-Strike 2 changed how the output float is calculated. Instead of averaging raw floats, the game averages each input's position inside its own float range:
This means a 0.10 float on a skin whose range is 0.06–0.80 counts as 0.054 (5.4% of its range), while the same 0.10 on a 0.00–1.00 skin counts as 0.10. Skins with a narrow or high-starting range can therefore be surprisingly good inputs.
| Wear | Float |
|---|---|
| Factory New | below 0.07 |
| Minimal Wear | 0.07 – 0.15 |
| Field-Tested | 0.15 – 0.38 |
| Well-Worn | 0.38 – 0.45 |
| Battle-Scarred | 0.45 and above |
To guarantee a Factory New output on a 0.00–1.00 skin you need an average normalised input below 0.07; on a 0.00–0.50 skin you only need below 0.14. Always check each outcome's range – different outcomes in the same contract can land in different wears.
Expected value (EV) is the average value you receive per contract if you repeated it many times:
A positive ROI means the contract is profitable on average, not that every attempt wins. Look at the chance of profit too: a contract with +20% ROI but a 10% chance of profit is very high variance. Remember that selling skins costs fees (Steam takes about 15%; third-party markets usually less), so build in a margin.
Our free calculator pulls live prices for all ten inputs and every outcome, then shows odds, float, EV, ROI and chance of profit.
Open the CS2 trade up calculator →This is about choosing a contract worth doing. For the in-game steps (where the contract is, how to confirm it) see how to trade up in CS2; for where the contract came from and what changed between CS:GO and CS2, see CS:GO trade up contracts 2013–2018.
StatTrak: ten StatTrak inputs always return a StatTrak output, so price StatTrak outcomes, not normal ones. Souvenirs can be traded up since May 22, 2026 – they count as normal inputs of their rarity, lose their stickers and Souvenir status, and never produce a Souvenir output. Covert skins can no longer only be sold – five of them can be traded up into a knife or gloves. Some newer collections only have a few rarities, so check that every collection you use has a skin at the next tier.
The CS2 update of October 22, 2025 added a new contract: 5 Covert skins → 1 knife or 1 pair of gloves. The result comes from the case collection of one of the skins you used, so the knife or glove pool is decided by your inputs.
We re-run the maths on every single-collection contract in the game every 30 minutes with live marketplace prices. The numbers below are the current snapshot; open any contract to see all ten inputs and every outcome.
Loading live contracts…
See the full lists: profitable trade ups, best trade ups by ROI, cheapest knife trade up, trending skins.
Input cost is the only part of a contract you fully control. The same ten skins can cost 20–40% less on third-party marketplaces than on Steam, and the difference often decides whether a contract is +EV. Useful starting points on this site: skins under $1, under $5, the cheapest Mil-Spec, Restricted and Classified skins by rarity, cheapest Covert skins (for knife contracts) and filler skins. Every skin page shows the lowest price on each marketplace next to the Steam price, and you can set a price alert to receive one email when an input drops to your target. Not sure what you already own? The Steam inventory value calculator lists every skin in your inventory and marks the ones usable in a contract.
Opening a case is a fixed-odds lottery: about 0.26% for a knife or gloves, with most of the value in that one outcome. A trade up lets you choose the pool of outcomes and the float, so the variance is something you pick rather than something you accept. Our best cases to open page ranks every case by expected return, and the case simulator lets you see the odds without spending anything. For most players the maths favours well-chosen trade ups over case opening; the exception is when you specifically want a knife from a case whose Covert skins are expensive.
They can be when the numbers are positive. Most random trade ups lose value; carefully chosen ones with low-float inputs and few outcomes can have a positive expected value.
No. Odds depend only on how many inputs each collection has and how many next-tier skins that collection contains. Float only affects the output float.
CS2 inherited all CS:GO collections, so the CS2TradeUp.gg calculator works for both – with the updated CS2 float maths.
Exactly ten skins of the same rarity for a normal contract, or exactly five Covert skins for a knife or glove contract. You cannot use fewer, and you cannot mix StatTrak™ with normal skins.
Yes, since October 22, 2025: five Covert skins give one knife or pair of gloves from the case collection of one of your inputs. Use the knife trade up calculator to see which case pool you get and what it is worth.
Each input float is converted to a percentage of its own float range, the ten percentages are averaged, and that average is mapped onto the output skin's range: output = out_min + average × (out_max − out_min).
On most random contracts, yes: the average contract in the game has a negative expected value after fees. The point of a calculator is to find the minority of contracts where the odds, floats and prices line up. Our live scan above shows how many are profitable at the moment.
Yes. Ten StatTrak™ inputs give a StatTrak™ output and five StatTrak™ Coverts give a StatTrak™ knife. Gloves have no StatTrak™ version, so a glove result from StatTrak™ inputs is a normal glove.