Farming Simulator 25: Complete Guide

Everything a new or returning farmer needs in Farming Simulator 25: choosing a map, making your first money, the field-work cycle, animals, productions, and the expansions and free packs released since launch.

Researched September 2026 — current as of Patch 1.23.0.0 (September 9, 2026), with the Beans & Alpacas expansion announced for October 27, 2026. Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

Start on "New Farmer" if this is your first Farming Simulator. You get a farm, some fields, and basic machines, so you can learn the work cycle without planning an empire from scratch. "Farm Manager" gives you cash and land but no machines. "Start from Scratch" is the hard mode.
Contracts (missions) are the best early money. Neighbors pay you to harvest, cultivate, sow, fertilize, bale, and so on, and often lend you the machine. You earn cash and learn new equipment at the same time.
Look at the Calendar before you plant. Seasons are on by default. Every crop has planting and harvest months, and planting in the wrong month does nothing.
Hire AI workers. Workers cost an hourly wage, but they let you run several machines at once. With the GPS steering in FS25 they also make neater passes.
Sell at the right place and time. Prices differ by selling point and change through the year. Use the Prices screen, and store grain in a silo when prices are low.
Lease before you buy. Leasing an expensive machine for one job usually beats sinking the price of a field into equipment you use twice a season.
Lime, fertilize, and weed. A field's yield multiplier depends on lime, fertilizer, weeding, plowing or cultivating, and rolling. Each missed step costs you money at harvest.
Do not overbuild animals early. Livestock needs daily feed, water, straw, and cleaning. Get a working crop business going first.
Keep the free packs up to date. GIANTS has released several free packs (Emergency, Straw Harvest, Pumps N' Hoses) plus free content updates with extra machines. They download automatically with patches or from the in-game store.

Maps: Which Farm Should You Pick?

FS25 launched with three maps. The Highlands Fishing expansion added a fourth, and Beans & Alpacas will add a fifth.

Map	Region	Good for	Notes
Riverbend Springs	North America	First playthrough, big fields	Winding rivers and historic grain elevators. Large, simple fields suit big machines.
Zielonka	Central Europe	Mixed farming, animals	Smaller fields surrounded by ponds. Very traditional European farming.
Hutan Pantai	East Asia	Rice, new Asian crops	Rice paddies, water buffalo, and a neon-lit port city. Different from anything in older games.
Kinlaig (Highlands Fishing)	Scotland	Fishing, Highland cattle	Paid expansion released November 4, 2025, included in the Year 1 Season Pass.
Catuaí (Beans & Alpacas)	South America	Coffee, bananas, alpacas	Paid expansion releasing October 27, 2026. Available for pre-order.

Recommendation: Pick Riverbend Springs for your first save. Try Hutan Pantai once you know the basic cycle, because rice growing works differently from normal crops.

The Core Field-Work Cycle

Every arable crop follows the same basic loop. Learn it once and it applies everywhere.

Prepare the soil. Cultivate or plow after harvest. Plowing occasionally prevents the "needs plowing" yield penalty. Some players switch that penalty off in the settings.
Lime when the field shows lime is needed. Liming is required every few harvests.
Sow the right crop in its planting window.
Fertilize. Two applications give the best yield. Solid fertilizer, liquid fertilizer, manure, slurry, and digestate all count.
Weed. Use a weeder early in growth, or a herbicide sprayer.
Roll the field after sowing for a yield bonus.
Harvest with the right header, then deal with the straw. You can bale it or mulch it.

Open the Field Info or map overlays to see what each field still needs. Then work through the fields methodically instead of guessing.

Crops

The store page says FS25 has 25 crop types. New for this entry are two kinds of rice (grown on water-retaining rice fields), spinach, peas, and green beans. There are also greenhouse vegetables and several tree species for forestry.

Crop type	Examples	Notes
Grains	Wheat, barley, oat, canola, sorghum	Fast cash crops with simple equipment.
Row crops	Maize (corn), sunflowers, soybeans	Need specific headers.
Root crops	Potatoes, sugar beet	Need special planters and harvesters, but they are very profitable.
Vegetables	Spinach, peas, green beans	New in FS25, harvested with specialized machines.
Rice	Two rice types	Needs flooded or water-retaining paddies. Mostly on Hutan Pantai.
Permanent crops	Grapes, olives	Planted once, harvested yearly with specialized machines.
Grass	Grass, hay, silage	Animal feed, and useful for early bale contracts.
Onions	Onions	Added with Highlands Fishing. Check the in-game Calendar for the planting and harvest months.
Coffee, bananas	Coffee, bananas	Coming with Beans & Alpacas. Each uses its own plantation system.

Weather hazards

FS25 adds tornadoes (twisters) and hail, which can damage crops. There is also ground deformation: heavy machines leave ruts, especially in wet conditions. On a rainy day, work the grass or animal side of the farm and leave the fields alone.

Machines, GPS, and Workers

Over 400 licensed machines from more than 150 brands, including Case IH, CLAAS, Fendt, John Deere, Kubota, Massey Ferguson, New Holland, and Valtra.
GPS-assisted steering is built into the base game. Set up guidance lines to get perfect parallel passes, then either hand the machine to a worker or drive along the line yourself.
Workers cost wages but repay them quickly on large fields. Give each worker a field and a job, then go and do something else.
Machine wear goes up with use. Repair at the workshop or with a mobile workshop, and repaint for cosmetic condition.
Lease versus buy: Leasing costs a fee plus a per-day or per-hour charge. It is ideal for seasonal specialists like beet harvesters or balers.

Controls: FS25 supports keyboard and mouse, controllers, steering wheels, and farming control panels. Patch 1.21 improved bindings for the Moza Farming Control System. Check and rebind everything in Settings > Controls, especially the implement lowering, turn-on, and fold functions.

Animals

Livestock in FS25: cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, horses, water buffalo, and goats. Baby animals and breeding are shown visually in the pens. Highlands Fishing adds Highland cattle. Beans & Alpacas will add alpacas and Brahman cows.

Animal	Main products	Care notes
Cows	Milk, manure, slurry, meat	Mixed feed (TMR) gives the best productivity.
Sheep and goats	Wool, goat milk	Mostly grass-based, simple to run.
Pigs	Meat (sold as live animals)	Complex feed of grain, maize, and root crops.
Chickens	Eggs	Cheap and simple starter animal.
Buffalo	Buffalo milk	New in FS25, tied to the Asian map.
Horses	Value from riding and care	Riding and grooming raise their sale value.

Tips:

Check the barn's feed, water, and straw every day. Productivity drops fast when anything runs out.
Manure and slurry are free fertilizer, so put them back on your fields. The free Pumps N' Hoses Pack (Patch 1.23) adds umbilical hose systems, manure separation into liquid and solid parts, and configurable biogas plants.

Productions, Selling, and Constructions

Production buildings turn raw goods into higher-value products. Examples are bakeries, dairies, sawmills, spinneries, and the new production chains from each expansion. FS25 also has farm shops, productions, and constructions as business ventures.

Rules of thumb:

Check input costs against output prices before you build. A production that uses crops you would otherwise sell cheaply is a good deal. One that makes you buy inputs is usually not.
Automate deliveries where you can. Pallets and trucks eat time.
Construction projects ask you to deliver resources. Beans & Alpacas extends this with community-focused construction tasks on Catuaí.
Sell in bulk at price peaks. Grain stored in the silo does not rot.

Forestry

Trees can be felled with a chainsaw early on. Harvesters, forwarders, and wood chippers come later. Sell logs to the sawmill, or chip them for wood chips. Forestry is a good rainy-day earner. It is also relaxing when you do not want to run field work.

Expansions and Free Content Timeline

Date	Release	What it adds
Nov 12, 2024	Base game	Three maps, 25 crops, GIANTS Engine 10
June 2025	Plains & Prairies Pack (Year 1 Season Pass)	Classic Ford tractors and other North American machinery
Aug 2025	Free Straw Harvest Pack	KRONE and Bressel und Lade straw machinery
Sept 2025	Mercedes-Benz Trucks Pack	17 vehicles including Unimog and MB Trac
Nov 4, 2025	Highlands Fishing expansion	Kinlaig map (Scotland), aquaculture and casual fishing, onions, Highland cattle, 20+ machines
Nov 2025	Year 2 Season Pass	Another expansion plus packs (Vredo Pack included)
March 2026	Vredo Pack (Year 2 Season Pass)	12 overseeding machines from Vredo and Evers Agro, plus wild boar
June 25, 2026	Free Emergency Pack	Firefighting, rescue, and technical-assistance missions, plus two Schlingmann fire trucks
June 30, 2026	SKY Agriculture Pack	12 seeding, fertilizing, and soil implements
Sept 9, 2026	Free Pumps N' Hoses Pack + Patch 1.23.0.0	Umbilical manure systems, manure separation, biogas, 40+ items
Oct 27, 2026	Beans & Alpacas expansion	Catuaí map (Brazil-inspired), coffee, bananas, alpacas, Brahman cows, new production chains

Getting ready for Beans & Alpacas

From GIANTS' official previews:

Coffee has five growth states. It uses its own plantation system with no conventional seeder. You "paint" a plantation boundary to generate rows. Plantations can be placed at any time of year, and their starting growth stage adjusts to the season.
Bananas get a dedicated cultivation system with rails and washing stations. On Catuaí they can be planted and harvested year-round. You can generate a full layout automatically, and hired workers can automate the harvest.
New production chains lead to coffee drinks, tiramisu, coffee yogurt, alpaca textiles and furniture, and paint. Fungicide also joins crop care.

Mods and ModHub

The in-game ModHub has thousands of developer-tested mods. In August 2026 GIANTS stated that all mods must be free. Paid Patreon tiers, paid Discord roles, "VIP" or early access, and paid download speeds are all prohibited. Only download mods from ModHub or trusted free sources. When a major patch lands, disable your mods before reporting a bug.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Planting out of season. Always check the calendar.
Buying too much equipment on day one. Contracts and leasing carry you until your fields pay off.
Ignoring lime and weeds. They are cheap compared with the yield you lose.
Selling everything at harvest. Prices are often lowest when everyone else is selling too. Store and wait for a better price.
Buying animals with no feed plan. Starving animals lose productivity and value.
Leaving workers on cheap jobs. Put workers on big, time-consuming tasks and do the fiddly jobs yourself.
Running old mods after a patch. Major updates recompile shaders. The first launch can stutter, and outdated mods can break saves.

Advanced Tips

Loop the work around your fields. Organize fields by crop so one machine setup can run through several fields back to back.
Chain your productions. Feed your own crops into your own productions, then sell the finished goods at the best-paying point. That captures the full value.
Use manure systems at scale. With Pumps N' Hoses, umbilical drag hoses spread slurry without tanker trips. Separated solids are easy to store, and biogas turns waste into energy income.
Crop rotation matters (if enabled). With the crop rotation game setting switched on, growing the same crop repeatedly hurts yields. Check the in-game crop rotation info before planning your rotation.
Play multiplayer and crossplay. FS25 supports cooperative farms. Split roles (field work, animals, logistics) and you can grow very quickly.
Backup saves before a big patch or expansion install.

FAQ

Is Farming Simulator 25 good for beginners? Yes. The "New Farmer" start, contracts, tutorials, and quality-of-life features make it GIANTS' most beginner-friendly entry.

How do I make money fast early on? Do contracts with borrowed equipment, harvest your starting fields, and sell grain at price peaks. Baling contracts and forestry are also quick earners.

When does Beans & Alpacas release? October 27, 2026. It is available for pre-order separately, or as an Edition that includes the base game.

Is Highlands Fishing in the Season Pass? Yes. Year 1 Season Pass owners got it automatically.

Are mods free? Yes. GIANTS requires all Farming Simulator mods to be free. Get them from the in-game ModHub.

What is the newest patch? Patch 1.23.0.0, released on September 9, 2026 alongside the free Pumps N' Hoses Pack.