GTA Online Humane Labs Raid Heist Guide: All 5 Setups, Payout and Best Strategy

The Humane Labs Raid is the third of GTA Online's five original heists, and it pays up to $675,000 on Hard if your crew plays it clean. Unlike the Fleeca Job or the Diamond Casino Heist, there is no choice of approach here: every crew runs the same five setups and the same two-team finale, so success comes down to coordination, not planning.

Humane Labs Raid essentials

• Unlocked at: Rank 12, with a high-end apartment that has a heist planning room
• Crew size: 2 to 4 players
• Setup cost: $54,000 total across all five prep missions
• Max payout (Hard, split among the crew): $675,000
• Number of setups: 5, plus the finale
• Elite Challenge time: under 11:00
• Elite Challenge extras: vehicle damage under 2%, no player deaths

What is the Humane Labs Raid

Lester sends the crew after classified research files locked inside the Humane Labs and Research facility in Rockford Hills. It was added in the original March 2015 Heists update, alongside the Fleeca Job and the Prison Break, and it still sits in the middle of the difficulty curve: harder to coordinate than Fleeca, easier to wipe a lobby with than the Pacific Standard Job finale.

To start it, become CEO or use your heist planning room as the Heist Leader, open the interaction menu, and select Heists > Humane Labs Raid. You will need Rank 12 and enough cash on hand to cover the $54,000 in setup costs before the finale pays out.

The 5 setup missions

Every setup must be completed once before the finale unlocks. They can be run solo or with your crew, and each one restocks equipment the finale depends on.

Setup	Objective
Key Codes	A Buyer and a Bodyguard meet a contact to trade cash for the keycard codes needed to enter the lab
Insurgents	Steal two armored Insurgent LAPVs from a Merryweather test site at the Davis Quartz Quarry
EMP	Fight onto a Merryweather aircraft carrier to steal a Hydra jet fitted with an EMP device, then escort it to the drop-off
Valkyrie	Assault Merryweather's base at the Los Santos Naval Port to steal the Buckingham Valkyrie used in the finale
Deliver EMP	Load the EMP device into a stolen Insurgent and drive it into the Humane Labs facility without getting caught

Run Key Codes and Insurgents first if you are playing with a smaller crew; they are the most forgiving and get your team into rhythm before the EMP and Valkyrie setups, which both involve open combat against Merryweather reinforcements.

The finale: Ground Team vs Air Team

The finale splits a four-player crew into two teams:

• Ground Team (2 players): Parachutes onto the Humane Labs parking lot wearing night-vision goggles and rebreathers, blows the control panel to force the door, moves through the facility to the lab, grabs the files, and exits through the underwater tunnel to a beach rendezvous.
• Air Team (2 players): Flies the Valkyrie stolen in the setup, drops the Ground Team off, holds off Merryweather helicopters while the Ground Team is inside, then extracts them from the beach once they signal with a flare.

Voice comms make or break this mission. The Air Team needs to call out incoming helicopters early, and the Ground Team needs to keep moving through the facility rather than lingering for extra kills, since the timer for the Elite Challenge keeps running the whole way through.

How much does Humane Labs Raid pay

The finale payout scales with difficulty and splits by role, with the Heist Leader taking a cut before the rest divides the remainder:

• Normal: up to $540,000
• Hard: up to $675,000

Setup missions also pay out on completion, and Rockstar boosted setup payouts by 1.2x with Title Update 1.73, so grinding the five preps solo is no longer a pure loss before the finale check clears.

Elite Challenge (gold medal) requirements

To bank the Elite Challenge bonus on the finale, your crew needs to:

• Finish the mission in under 11 minutes
• Keep vehicle damage under 2 percent
• Avoid any player deaths

The tightest part is usually the Ground Team's route through the lab. A crew that already knows the layout can shave over a minute off a blind run, so it is worth doing one non-Elite run first if nobody in the group has done the heist before.

Best crew and loadout tips

• Use a full four-player crew if you can. Two-team split finales like this one are much smoother with dedicated Ground and Air players than with two people juggling both jobs.
• Bring a Heavy Sniper or Combat MG for the Air Team. The Valkyrie's mounted guns handle most threats, but a gunner covering blind spots speeds up the helicopter fights.
• Rebreathers matter. The Ground Team's underwater exit section is a common death spot for players who did not realize they need to manage oxygen.
• Communicate the flare signal clearly. A late or missed pickup call is the single most common way crews blow their Elite Challenge time.

How it compares to other GTA Online heists

Humane Labs Raid sits alongside the other four original heists as one of the harder coordination tests in GTA Online, but it has no branching approaches like later heists. If you are still working through the series, start with the Fleeca Job to learn the basics, then move on to the Prison Break heist before tackling this one. Once you have Humane Labs Raid down, the Diamond Casino Heist and the Kortz Center heist are natural next steps, and completionists chasing every gold medal should check the full GTA 5 heists gold medal guide for every requirement across the series.

The Humane Labs Raid remains one of the better payouts per minute among the original five heists once your crew has the setups memorized, and it is a solid proving ground before stepping up to newer heists like the Doomsday Heist or Cayo Perico.

Why the Humane Labs Raid still matters in 2026

Rockstar has confirmed GTA Online will keep running after GTA 6 launches, so heists like this one are not going anywhere soon. It also remains one of the clearest windows into how GTA Online's heist structure evolved: the fixed setups and fixed finale of Humane Labs Raid contrast sharply with the branching approaches Rockstar introduced later in the Diamond Casino Heist and the multiple scored variations of the Doomsday Heist. Playing through the original five heists in order still gives new players the clearest read on how the format grew from a single scripted sequence into the flexible, replayable jobs the game runs today.

Frequently asked questions

Can I solo the Humane Labs Raid? The setup missions can be run solo, but the finale needs at least two players to split the Ground and Air teams, so you cannot complete the whole heist alone the way you can with Cayo Perico.

What rank do I need? Rank 12, the same requirement as the other four original heists, along with a high-end apartment that includes a heist planning room.

Does the setup cost come out of the final payout? No. The $54,000 in setup costs is paid up front by the Heist Leader as each prep mission starts, separate from the finale's payout split.