How to wait in Starfield and pass time

Starfield player sitting on New Atlantis bench with NPCs staring very intently at them

(Image credit: Bethesda)

Knowing how to wait in Starfield and pass time is useful for selling or buying what you want from vendors around the Settled Systems. Since vendors refresh their item stock and money each day, you can stand around and wait for them to close and open their shops if you've got a lot of space loot to sell or if you're in need of huge quantities of a particular Starfield resource. Importantly, certain missions will require you to be in the right place at the right time or maybe you need an NPC to go to bed so you can ransack their treasure or rummage through their computer. Whatever your motivation, I've detailed below how to wait in Starfield and pass time.

Disclaimer

All the tips about passing time in Starfield are accurate as of November 14, 2023, which is when this guide was last updated, and it seems extremely unlikely that Bethesda is going to change how this simple system works.

How to wait and pass time in Starfield

Starfield waiting period box — (Image credit: Bethesda)

More Starfield guides

Starfield Planets
Starfield Biomes
Where to sell items in Starfield
Starfield survey data
Starfield Planet Traits

If you want to wait in Starfield and pass time, you need to find a piece of furniture - specifically somewhere you can sit or lie down, like a chair, sofa, bench, stool, or bed. Then just choose to sit or lie down accordingly by looking at it and pressing the A button when indicated.

After relaxing, you'll get a prompt to press Y to wait, whereupon you can choose for how long you want to wait, up to 24 hours, It's not an instant process, but it's massively fast forwarded and will speed by in a few seconds while you wait for the timer to elapse.

If you do want to do this, it's better to do it in a bed - you can get a well-rested perk that grants you a 10% experience bonus for a time (increased to 15% if you do it with a romantic partner for the "Emotional Security").

Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.