Guide: What happens when ESO+ ends

Danikat

I've seen several people ask about this and when I looked it up recently I found quite a bit of out-dated or incomplete info, so I thought it might be useful to do a quick guide to what happens when you end ESO+ in 2026, based on my experience doing exactly that a few days ago.

If I've missed anything or made any mistakes please let me know.

• Bonus progression - 10% extra gold, XP AP, tome points, reduced crafting research time etc. - stops completely.
• Double antiquity lead time - stops completely, any active leads will revert to their base time. (I'm not sure what happens if that would cause them to expire, I only had a 30 day sub.)
• Monthly crowns - you keep the ones you've got but will not get any more.
• Tamriel Tome premium tokens & caches - you keep the ones you've got but will not get any more.
• Costume & hat dying - costumes and hats you've dyed stay dyed, but you cannot make any changes to them or any others.
• Free crown store items - any you've got stay unlocked and fully useable but you cannot claim new ones, from the crown store or gold coast bazaar.
• Double furnishing space - any furnishings placed over the limit stay but new ones cannot be added. Be careful, this means if you accidentally remove something you cannot put it back.
• Double transmute crystal capacity - Any you've earned will stay but you cannot open more geodes until you're below the current limit.
• Double bank space - Any items over your new limit will stay and can be withdrawn but nothing new can be added until you're below the limit.
• Craft Bag & Furniture Vault - anything already inside will stay until you withdraw it (or use it to craft) but you cannot put anything else in, including returning items you took out or adding to existing stacks. Crafting will use items from your craft bag before ones in your inventory or bank and there is no way to prevent this.
• DLC & chapter access - You can still access any chapter or DLC zone you bought permanently (ones greyed out and marked purchased in the crown store) but will lose access to ones you haven't bought. Any characters there will be teleported to a different zone when you log into them. You will keep quest progress and any items earned from the DLC but won't be able to progress further until you buy it or subscribe again.
• Homes in DLC/Chapter zones - Homes you've bought in zones you don't have access to will still be available. Apparently the free inn rooms are an exception to this and are locked if you don't own the DLC, even if you previously unlocked them.
• Tanlorin & Zerith-var - Full access is retained. If you've completed the quest and unlocked the companion you can still use them and characters who haven't yet done so can start the quest. (This is the one I was unsure about, but I tested it today.)

Not part of ESO+
(These are things I've seen people assume are included in ESO+ but are actually available to everyone and so unaffected by subscription status.)

• Tamriel Tomes (free or paid version).
• Seals store and gold coast bazaar (except the section marked ESO+ exclusive).
• Armour and weapon dying.
• The option to buy chapters and DLC for permanent access.
• Antiquities (they're part of the Greymoor chapter and may require access to other chapter zones).
• Jewelery crafting (was part of the Summerset chapter, I think now it's base game).
• Blade of Woe - the Dark Brotherhood DLC is base game now, but even before that you kept access to it once it was unlocked, even if you didn't own the DLC.
• Home storage chests - everyone can buy them with crowns, writ vouchers or AP and everyone can use them once they've got them.