The Sims 4 Cheats Guide: Every Cheat Code Worth Using
How to open the Sims 4 cheat console and use the money, skill, career, relationship, and testingcheats codes on PC, Mac, and console.
So there's your Sim, stuck in a two-room starter place with barely enough Simoleons for a fridge, working a job that pays like a paper route. Cheats fix all of that. The Sims 4 has one of the friendliest cheat setups around, and nearly all of it is built into the game on purpose - it's not some hack you dug out of a sketchy forum.
One thing worth knowing before you type anything, though. On PC and Mac, cheating costs you nothing. On PlayStation and Xbox, turning on testingcheats permanently switches off trophies and achievements for that save file. Per save, not per session. If you're chasing a platinum, read the last section before you touch a single code.
How to Open the Cheat Console on PC, Mac, and Console
Everything runs through one small text box. Getting that box open is the only fiddly part, and the buttons are different on every platform.
PC and Mac
On Windows, hold Ctrl + Shift + C and a thin bar shows up in the top left corner. On a Mac you swap the Ctrl for Command + Shift + C. Click into the box, type your cheat, hit Enter. Press the same combo again to close it.
If nothing happens, you're probably sitting in Create-A-Sim or on the main menu. The console wants Live Mode or Build Mode, so hop back into the game and try again.
PlayStation and Xbox
On PS4 and PS5, hold L1 + L2 + R1 + R2 together. On Xbox One and Series X|S it's LB + LT + RB + RT. Hold them for a beat and the cheat box opens along with an on-screen keyboard, since you don't have a keyboard sitting on your lap.
Typing long codes with a controller is kind of a pain, honestly. Short stuff like motherlode is fine. A monster like stats.set_skill_level Major_HomestyleCooking 10 will take you a while.
The First Command: testingcheats true
Almost everything below needs cheats switched on first. Type this and press Enter:
testingcheats true
The console confirms with "Cheats Enabled." If you'd rather, testingcheats on and testingcheats yes both do the same job. Turn it back off with testingcheats false.
A few basic cheats skip this step - the money trio works on a fresh save with cheats off. Most everything else wants it on. If a code comes back with "Unable to execute command," nine times out of ten it's because you skipped this line.
Money and Motherlode Cheats
The classics. These have been paying Sim mortgages for two decades and they still work exactly like you remember.
The Big Three Cash Cheats
| Cheat | What you get |
| --- | --- |
| kaching | 1,000 Simoleons |
| rosebud | 1,000 Simoleons |
| motherlode | 50,000 Simoleons |
Motherlode has been in the series since The Sims 2, and rosebud goes all the way back to the first game. Kaching and rosebud do the same thing, so pick whichever one your fingers remember.
None of these need testingcheats turned on. Just open the console and type. Need 200k? Four motherlodes gets you there, which is usually faster than doing math.
Setting an Exact Amount
If you want a precise bank balance, use this one:
Money 35000
That needs testingcheats true first, and here's the part that trips people up: it sets your total, it doesn't add. If you've got 40,000 and you type Money 35000, you just lost 5,000. There's no built-in "add X" command, so to grow your funds by a specific amount you either do the addition yourself or just spam motherlode and move on.
Free Houses
FreeRealEstate on
Type that while you're in the world or neighborhood view - the screen where you're picking a lot to move into, not Live Mode. Every lot in that world becomes free, so your broke family can walk straight into the biggest mansion on the map. Turn it off with FreeRealEstate off.
This one's handy for legacy challenges too, where you want a specific starting house without the grind.
Testingcheats Mode and Object Interactions
This is where cheats stop being about money and start being about running the game itself. Flip testingcheats on and a whole hidden menu appears when you hold Shift and click on things.
Shift-Click on a Sim
With testingcheats active, Shift-click any Sim and you get options that aren't there otherwise:
- Cheat Need > Make Happy - fills every need bar and drops them into a Happy mood. Great before a promotion party or a wedding you don't want ruined by a Sim passing out.
- Cheat Need > Disable Need Decay - freezes the bars so nobody gets hungry or tired. Turn it back on with Enable Need Decay when you want normal life back.
- Reset Object - snaps a stuck or frozen Sim back to a working state.
- Add to Family - pulls a townie into your household on the spot.
- Modify in CAS - reopens Create-A-Sim for that person.
That last one has a catch, which brings us to the next bit.
cas.fulleditmode
The normal Modify in CAS option only lets you change surface stuff - hair, clothes, that kind of thing. Name, traits, and body shape stay locked. To unlock all of it, type this in Live Mode first:
cas.fulleditmode
Then Shift-click the Sim and pick Modify in CAS. Now you can rewrite their name, swap their traits, change their body, everything. Note that the console gives you zero confirmation this worked - no message, nothing. It just quietly does it, so type it, open CAS, and see what's available.
Objects, Mailboxes, and the Ground
Shift-click works on more than Sims:
- On an object: Make Clean or Make Dirty. Handy for screenshots, or for making a slob's house look lived in.
- On the ground: Teleport Sim Here. Your selected Sim instantly appears at that spot.
- On the mailbox: alter needs for the whole household or the entire world at once, plus utility options for power and water.
- On a decorative object: Make Head, which sticks the item on your Sim's neck like some horrible chimera. No real use. Very funny.
Build Mode Cheats
The bb. family runs Build Mode:
bb.moveobjects on- turns off placement rules. Cluster decor, overlap items, put a plant in a wall. The 9 and 0 keys raise and lower whatever you're holding. Turn it off withbb.moveobjects off.bb.showhiddenobjects- the debug cheat. Unlocks scenery and clutter objects that normally can't be bought.bb.showliveeditobjects- even more hidden stuff. Use it after the one above for hundreds of extra items.bb.ignoregameplayunlocksentitlement- lets you buy items that are usually locked behind career progress.bb.increaserentalunitcap on- pushes past the 6-unit limit on rental lots if you have the For Rent expansion.
One caution on moveobjects: don't leave it running while you save a lot. More on that in the last section.
Skill, Career, and Relationship Cheats
The big three for skipping grind. All of these need testingcheats true switched on first.
Skill Cheats
The format never changes:
stats.set_skill_level SkillName 10
So to max out Charisma:
stats.set_skill_level Major_Charisma 10
Most adult skills cap at 10. Minor skills like Dancing stop at 5. A few oddballs go past 10 - Vampire Lore from the Vampires pack tops out at 15. Here's a chunk of the common base-game set:
| Skill | Cheat | Max |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Cooking | stats.set_skill_level Major_HomestyleCooking 10 | 10 |
| Gourmet Cooking | stats.set_skill_level Major_GourmetCooking 10 | 10 |
| Baking | stats.set_skill_level Major_Baking 10 | 10 |
| Charisma | stats.set_skill_level Major_Charisma 10 | 10 |
| Comedy | stats.set_skill_level Major_Comedy 10 | 10 |
| Handiness | stats.set_skill_level Major_Handiness 10 | 10 |
| Logic | stats.set_skill_level Major_Logic 10 | 10 |
| Painting | stats.set_skill_level Major_Painting 10 | 10 |
| Piano | stats.set_skill_level Major_Piano 10 | 10 |
| Programming | stats.set_skill_level Major_Programming 10 | 10 |
| Writing | stats.set_skill_level Major_Writing 10 | 10 |
| Fitness | stats.set_skill_level Skill_Fitness 10 | 10 |
| Dancing | stats.set_skill_level Minor_Dancing 5 | 5 |
| Bowling | stats.set_skill_level Skill_Bowling 5 | 5 |
Two gotchas here. First, spacing matters - that's three separate chunks with spaces between them, not one long word. Second, the prefixes aren't consistent. Fitness is Skill_Fitness, not Major_Fitness. If a code bounces back with an error, the prefix is usually the culprit.
Kids and toddlers use their own separate skill names, so the adult list won't touch them.
Career Cheats
These move your Sim up or down the ladder one rung at a time:
careers.promote Writer
careers.demote Writer
Promoting from level 1 to the top means typing it nine more times. Annoying, but it's how the game handles it. A few more that come in handy:
careers.add_career Writer- signs your Sim up for a job without touching a phone or computer.careers.remove_career Writer- quits it instantly, no two-week notice.
Career names in the cheat are usually the plain word, though plenty of them also accept a longer internal form like adult_writer. If the short one errors out, try the long one. Some common base-game names:
| Career | Promote cheat |
| --- | --- |
| Astronaut | careers.promote Astronaut |
| Athlete | careers.promote Athlete |
| Business | careers.promote Business |
| Culinary | careers.promote Culinary |
| Entertainer | careers.promote Entertainer |
| Painter | careers.promote Painter |
| Secret Agent | careers.promote SecretAgent |
| Tech Guru | careers.promote TechGuru |
| Writer | careers.promote Writer |
For careers that split into branches, like Astronaut branching into Interstellar Smuggler or Space Ranger, promoting just carries you up whichever branch your Sim already picked.
Relationship Cheats
This one's longer because it needs two full names:
modifyrelationship Bella Goth Mortimer Goth 100 LTR_Friendship_main
That's first name, last name, first name, last name, then a number from -100 to 100, then which bar you're changing. Swap the ending for what you need:
LTR_Friendship_main- the green friendship barLTR_Romance_main- the pink romance barLTR_SimtoPet_Friendship_main- your bond with a pet, if you have Cats & Dogs
Positive numbers push the bar up, negative ones tank it. So modifyrelationship Bella Goth Mortimer Goth -100 LTR_Friendship_main turns them into enemies on the spot. Great for drama, terrible for family dinners.
For reference on where the labels land: friendship hits Friend around 40, Good Friend around 60, and Best Friend up past 80. Below negative 70 and they're Despised.
Spelling counts here. The names have to match the Sims exactly, so a typo just gives you an error instead of a soulmate.
Common Cheat Mistakes That Break Save Files
Cheats don't usually torch a save outright. The damage comes from a handful of specific habits. Here's what actually goes wrong.
Console Players Lose Trophies for Good
This is the big one. On PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Series X|S, enabling testingcheats permanently disables trophies and achievements for that save file. Not for an hour. Not until you restart. That save never earns another one.
The game does warn you - a popup asks if you're sure before it flips the switch. That popup is your last exit.
If you want to keep hunting trophies, start a separate save for cheating. On PC and Mac this whole issue doesn't exist, since cheats don't touch achievements there at all.
Forgetting testingcheats true
The most common error in the game, probably. You type a career cheat, you get "Unable to execute command," and you assume the code is fake. It isn't - cheats just got switched off.
That can happen quietly, too. Traveling, loading a new lot, or jumping into a different save can drop testingcheats without telling you. If something that worked five minutes ago suddenly errors, retype testingcheats true before you do anything else.
Typos and Missed Spaces
The skill cheat is three chunks with spaces between them. stats.set_skill_levelMajor_Painting10 as one mashed-together blob does nothing. Same deal with the wrong prefix - Major_Fitness fails because the game calls it Skill_Fitness.
The Money cheat has its own trap, since it replaces your balance instead of adding to it. Setting Money 1000 on a household that had 80,000 just deleted 79,000 of it. There's no undo for that one.
Leaving Cheats On When You Save
bb.moveobjects is the usual offender. Objects placed while it's active can sit in spots the game doesn't really support, and the lot carries that with it. Plenty of players have also run into build mode acting up after placing stairs or rooms with moveobjects on, especially right after a patch. Turn it off with bb.moveobjects off when you're done building.
Need decay is the other one people forget. Disabling it through the mailbox affects the whole household or the whole world, and it's easy to flip on and never think about again. Suddenly nobody's eaten in three weeks and you can't figure out why the game feels weird.
Honest habit to build: type testingcheats false when you finish a cheating session. Takes two seconds.
No Undo Button
The game doesn't track cheat history. There's no way to reverse a promotion except spamming careers.demote back down the ladder. No way to un-give 50,000 except spending it or using Money to set a lower total. Whatever you cheat in, you live with.
So keep a backup. Before a heavy cheating session, use Save As and drop your game into a fresh slot. If you're on PC, your saves live in Documents, then Electronic Arts, then The Sims 4, then the saves folder - copy that somewhere safe and you can always roll the whole thing back.
When Something Does Break
A frozen Sim is the most common casualty, and there's a fix that doesn't need testingcheats at all:
resetsim Bella Goth
First name, last name, Enter. The Sim snaps back to a clean state and life carries on. The Shift-click Reset Object option does the same job if cheats are already on.
Between resetsim for stuck Sims, a spare save slot before you go wild, and turning moveobjects off when the build's done, you've covered most of what actually ruins saves. Cheating itself is pretty safe - it's the sloppy version of it that costs you a 40-hour family.