You drop a purple box onto the Extraction Point and hear the truck’s ding. For a second you wonder if you just paid the Taxman or scored a hat for your semibot. That tiny icon in the corner tells you the answer—and changes how you play the rest of the run.
I’ve tested extraction quirks and cheap deaths so you don’t have to. I’ll walk you through where Tax Tokens come from, how they behave, and the smartest ways to spend them so you don’t leave rare cosmetics—or cash—on the pavement. Read this like a field manual: short reads, clear steps, no fluff.
Where to find Tax Tokens in R.E.P.O.
I’ve loaded vans and cursed fragile cargo; in-game, boxes behave the same way.
Tax Tokens don’t appear as loot on the floor. You don’t pick them up like ammo or credits. Instead, they arrive as an icon at the bottom-right of your HUD after you carry boxes back to the Truck. Each box must be placed on an Extraction Point to convert into one Tax Token—one box equals one token.
How do I turn boxes into Tax Tokens?
Grab boxes inside levels, carry them back to the Truck, and place them on an available Extraction Point. If the box survives its health pool, it converts into a token. If it breaks, the cosmetic inside is destroyed—so treat boxes like valuables and protect them from fall and knockback damage.
Boxes come in four rarities, color-coded so you can plan at a glance:
- Green: Common
- Blue: Uncommon
- Purple: Rare
- Yellow: Legendary
Early runs give you fewer boxes; later stages increase the spawn rate—think of it as the game nudging you toward riskier hauls. Each box has a visible health bar. You can repair or transfer HP in the same way you patch a semibot, and if you’re clumsy with knockback, your loot will pop like a soap bubble.
Where to use Tax Tokens?
I once stood under a neon gas-pump at 2 a.m. and watched a vending machine give someone a mystery prize; the in-game Service Station feels like that.
After you extract boxes and return to the Truck, coins appear in the corner of your screen representing each rarity you’ve converted. These tokens persist between sessions and save files, so they’re a long-term resource, not a single-run flourish.
Where can I spend Tax Tokens?
Head to the Service Station dispenser—the pillar bathed in green light with a spinning cry-laugh emoji. Press E to insert a token and it spits out one random cosmetic relevant to that rarity. The token is consumed on use. Check the Customize menu to see what landed in your wardrobe.
Do Tax Tokens carry across saves?
Yes. Tokens carry across save files. That lets you hoard rarer tokens for a later run if you have your eye on a specific cosmetic or if you’d rather cash some in when you’re one payday away from an upgrade.
There’s a strategic wrinkle: uncommon and above tokens also award a bit of cash when exchanged, so an unused token is also a small emergency fund. You can keep tokens on-screen and choose whether to spend them for cosmetics now or cash later—treat them like a coin-operated vending machine for robot bling.
Tactical checklist I use on runs:
- Count Extraction Points before you pick up boxes. If you have more boxes than points, some tokens won’t convert.
- Prioritize carrying rarer boxes last so they suffer fewer falls or stuns.
- If you’re low on cash, hold uncommon+ tokens until you need the payout.
- Check Customize after every session—random cosmetics can be subtle and easy to miss.
If you want tools to track progress, community hubs on Steam and the game’s Discord host inventories and cosmetic screenshots that help you spot which token rarities are worth saving. I check those hubs before I decide whether to spend or stow.
So: will you feed the Taxman for a style boost, hoard tokens like savings, or gamble for the rarest drop?