XP (experience) points are what get you to higher levels in Zwift, and higher levels mean access to more virtual equipment and roads. Our calculations show that a rider can typically expect to earn 500-700XP per hour.
But are there ways Zwifters can earn XP faster? Of course! Here’s a definitive list of strategies for boosting your XP earnings.
Ride New Routes
The first time you complete an official Zwift route, you’ll earn the badge for that route, which includes an XP bonus equal to the regular XP you earned while riding the route. That means you effectively double your XP earning rate when riding new routes, assuming you actually finish the route.
Related: All About Cycling Route Achievement Badges in Zwift
Assuming you’re riding around 35kph, that’s a bonus of 700XP per hour if you’re just riding new routes. As of May 2025, if you tally up the XP bonuses from riding every route on Zwift, you get 102,217XP. That’s a whole lotta XP – enough to move you from level 30 to 45!
Note: a small number of event-only routes do not include an achievement badge/XP bonus. If you’re unsure, look up the route on our master list and see if it includes an achievement badge with bonus XP.
Ride a TT Bike
If you’re on a time trial frame, you won’t receive speed-boosting powerups when you ride through arches. Instead, you’ll receive the 10XP bonus. Every time!
Combine the TT bike with a short route that includes one or more lap banners and you’ll accumulate XP faster than you would riding a typical route on a road bike in the draft. Here are some suggested routes, sorted in order from frequent banners to least:
- Watopia’s Jarvis Island loop (2.9 miles, 3 banners per lap)
- Watopia’s Seaside Sprint (4 miles, 2 banners per lap)
- Crit City’s Bell Lap or Downtown Dolphin (event only – 1.2 miles, 1 banner per lap)
- New York’s LaGuardia Loop (event only – 1.6 miles, 1 banner per lap)
- Watopia’s Volcano Circuit or Volcano Circuit CCW (2.6 miles, 1 banner per lap)
- Richmond’s Fan Flats (3.1 miles, 1 banner per lap)
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Ride Flat Routes
XP is based purely on distance (20XP per kilometer/32XP per mile), so you’ll accumulate it faster if you keep your speed as high as possible. All other things being equal (effort level, drafting status, etc), your average speed will always be faster on flat routes than hilly ones, which means you’ll earn more XP per minute on flat routes.
Join Double XP Events and Challenges
Sometimes, Zwift holds events where riders earn double XP. That is, each kilometer you ride earns you 40XP, and if you’re using imperial measurements you’ll get 64XP for each mile.
Tour of Watopia is a popular annual event that includes double XP. Zwift has also been holding “XP Express” events awarding double XP.
Find double XP events here: zwift.com/events/tag/doublexp
There are also various in-game Challenges that Zwift holds which include XP bonuses. This includes their recent “Route of the Week” rollout, as well as short-term mini challenges like “Hell of a Route Chaser Challenge“. Working these Challenges into your workout plans can quickly add 500-1000XP to your workout.
Participate In Group Rides
As I already mentioned, the faster you go, the faster you’ll earn XP. Participate in group rides to enjoy the increased speeds of the group draft, and watch that XP add up!
Hack Your Workout
When you do a structured workout in Zwift, XP is calculated differently than the standard 20XP/km distance-based method. I’ve already written about this thoroughly here, where I share some hacks to maximize XP earnings via workouts, including changing interval length, doing workouts up the Alpe then free-riding down, and using workouts for your easy rides since you’ll likely earn more XP than free-riding.
Related:
How Zwift Calculates XP for Cycling Workouts
Level Up Faster On Zwift: GPLama’s XP Farming Alpe Workout
An additional bonus related to doing workouts up the Alpe: the spinner at the top awards XP if it lands on a prize you’ve already received. You’ll get 1000XP if it lands on the Lightweight Meilenstein wheels and you already have them, or 250XP if it lands on anything else that you already have.
Enjoy the Downhills
Any cyclist worth their chamois knows you don’t end a ride at the top of the hill – you earned that descent, so enjoy it! Your route may end at the top of a hill, but go ahead and take that descent: you’ll earn XP for the distance with little or no extra work.
Earn Achievement Badges
There are lots of achievement badges in game. Many are visible under Menu>Badges, but there’s a whole list of hidden achievements as well. Every one of those achievements includes an XP bonus, so grab those badges!
Related: A Complete List of Zwift Achievement Badges
Maintain Your Week Streak
Zwift rewards you with bonus XP when you ride at least once per week:
- Week 1: you’ll earn 300XP just for starting your streak.
- Week 2: extended your streak to 2 weeks? You’ll earn 400XP.
- Week 3+: every time you extend your streak past week 2, you’ll earn a 500XP bonus.
Related: All About Week Streaks on Zwift
So this one’s easy: just make sure you ride at least 2km (1.25 miles) each week. This can take place on Zwift, or outside if you have your Wahoo or Garmin account connected to Zwift (learn how to do that here).
Get On the (Rubber)Bandwagon
“Banded” rides in Zwift keep all riders together, regardless of effort level. As long as you keep pedaling, you’ll stay with the pack!
If you’re a rider who tends to rides at lower power (say, 1.5 W/kg or less), joining banded rides should significantly increase your average speed, which in turn will increase your XP earning rate.
See upcoming banded rides at ZwiftHacks >
Combining Strategies
For the ultimate in high-XP riding, combine two or more of the strategies above. (Simple example: choose a group ride on a route you haven’t completed.)
The achievement badges for multiple Volcano Circuit laps earn a big XP boost – you get bonuses for 5, 10, and 25 laps. The 25 lap bonus is 1000XP! Why not do a ride that gets all three, along with the 100km badge. Then keep going and get the 100-mile badge while you’re at it! Do it on a TT bike and you’ll be racking up XP points each time you ride through the lap banner.
What About You?
Got more tips for earning XP? Share them below!
If i understand, TT frames give the 250xp (and the 10xp also) on road’s arch but on climb portal the Tt frames give only the 10xp (bye bye 250xp bonus) !
TT bikes only get the 10xp bonus at all arches. Zwift just confirmed this…
So every “arch” in zwift (climb portal, sprint, climb, lap banner? and other arches type if exist?) gives 10xp in TT frame.
Yup.
So do all arches have a chance for the 250xp? So does that mean tt biking on jarvis loop and hitting all 3 banners guarantees 30 xp bonus a lap at the cost of sometimes missing a 250? That seems like mathematically its probably better to just use a different bike for long time banner xp hunting?
I never seen 250xp on my TT bike ride ever on road. I don’t ride TT up climb portals either. Is there a screenshot or video proof of possibility either road or portal arches? I would like to see if this is true.
It’s not true, and I just removed it from the post above after confirming that was the case with Zwift. TT bikes only get the 10xp bonus.
Hey Eric, love your posts… As an avid FREE Zwift Rider I tried most of your suggesions and some of them not (yet). I know, my reply will be a BIT off the topic, but speaking of xp’s in accordance to Leveling Up: I’m zwifting since 2018 and noticed every Level required different amount of xp’s in order to advance. The first 10 went rather quickly! As the Levels risen up so were the xp’s requirements. On the TOP of that, Zwift itself changed the challenge several times in the past, making advancing easier and then…(after many complaints) even harder than before! Bottom line, when I finally got to Level 50 (…and STUCK on it for awhile!), I noticed my xp’s amount was equal of 50’000! So I figured, despite of the different difficulties on every each Level, my total AVERAGE hanging around 10’000 xp’s per Level! Ever since, I’m using 10K to figure my whereabouts on Level’s scale. So, even though, I stuck again… This time on top Level 💯 since December ’24, I have at this moment…1’363’641 xp’s! According to my own calculations that put me on (NON-EXISTING👈😁) Level 136! Not sure if that’s gonna work for everybody in the same way, but it is “close enough” to find MY Level progress…! Especially, after Zwift announced there won’t be any more Level beyond 💯❗️But hey, they already said that after Level 60 and then after L#75. So…let’s hope for MORE to come…🤞😃🤞Anyway, that’s my 5 cents. Hope, some fellow zwifters find it interesting. Greetings and Ride On 😎👍❗️
When did Zwift announce there would be no levels beyond 100?
They didn’t. In fact, I’ve heard talk of more levels arriving soon…
Are they moving to infinite levels and ditching the weird “banked XP” formulas?
I hope not. Personally I like to have a goal. Level 100 is a goal. I know there are more challenges on Zwift but this one gives me something to chase. If I compete I like to know that there is a finish line on the end of it. If you add some distance (levels) the next time I see it as an extra challenge. I don’t mind if they add levels so WE can keep chasing but infinite levels gives me personally nothing to chase.
The feeling that I can get to the maximum level gives me a incentive. It’s a personal challenge. A race against myself.
With infinitive amount of levels it’s all about being the best. I don’t care for that because I’m not a talented professional rider with a lot of time on my hands. That’s for the 99,999999% of riders not realistic. It depends on your spare time, level, fysiek, age, etc….. I think only a small group of talented and well trained riders would benefit because they would compete against each other. Until one dominates and leaves the rest behind.
Luckily Zwift depends on many to buy and use their product. So they have to cater to everyone.
If you want to be the best than compete in the races on Zwift. An ‘infinitive’ amount of races. Races are added almost every day on Zwift. If you combine it with Zwift power you can compete worldwide. A great community with a lot of talented / well trained riders. For each their own.
Since levels are based primarily on KMs completed, it makes sense to have infinite levels since there is no limit on how far you can ride. They could fix this issue once and leave it alone rather than adding more levels each time enough people max out the available levels.
That is good to hear. I am probably around level 130 right now and get a little nostalgic when I read articles like this one.
I hope the need to create prizes for each level is not what keeps HQ from adding additional levels, I already have more jerseys/socks/hats than I can manage; I will never take off my confetti socks. I would love to just be able to keep track of where I stand rather than the silly reverting to level 100 I do every couple of weeks.
And then there is the XP farming that should be policed and disallowed by Zwift: when a rider teleports to the top of Ven-Top over and over for hours just to coast down with zero watts at 45+ mph for hundreds of miles, leveling up twenty times in the past couple of months. Actually happening daily by someone I’m connected with. Pathetic.
if they were too worried about people farming xp I have news for them…
Once you’ve got the Lightweight wheels, the AdZ prize wheel becomes a pretty good XP hack. A decently fit rider can get up and down in 75min. That’s 1,000xp + 480xp for one lap, meaning you can earn 74km worth of xp for ~75 minutes of riding.
You only get the 1000XP if you hit the Meilenstein again on the spinner. The other 7 fields are worth 250XP.
+5% bike upgrade works on gates
so I asked this previously and no one seemed to know, so after a few weeks I upgraded the emonda SL – an entry level climbing bike. After finally getting the 5th upgrade I can confirm that the +5% works on gates…I got 262 xp instead of 250 xp.
Note you won’t see it in the 10 xp because it’s less than 1. Cheers and happy xp farming. Now to test it in the double xp events.
For the Zwift Play owners, Repack Rush repeats are where it’s at. I get 50-55km/hr riding zone 2. Teleport to the A Robopacer at the end of your ride and use the coffee stop for another several kms. Currently doing this to upgrade a distance-based bike.
*** So this one’s easy: just make sure you ride at least 2km (1.25 miles) each week. This can take place on Zwift, or outside if you have your Wahoo or Garmin account connected to Zwift.
How can you connect Garmin and Zwift so that your outdoor rides count for ride streaks? I have them connected so that Zwift rides show up in Connect, but not the other way.
Here’s how to connect Garmin or Wahoo so your outdoor rides count on Zwift: https://zwiftinsider.com/fitness-tracker/
You’ll be credited with 8.125 XPs per mile ridden on outdoor rides, not the usual 32 per mile for Zwift rides.
Riding outdoors does not earn you the weekly XP bonus. In fact, if your first ride of the week is outdoor, you loose the bonus opportunity as you will not get it even if your second ride is on Zwift. It was reported and confirmed by many
With the addition of outdoor rides counting towards XP , its easy to hit the 1000xp per day cap if thats really what you’re interested in. Everytime a ride “hits” one of the supported third party apps it gives XP. Ride on a wahoo computer, get XP … upload that file to Garmin Connect for fitness tracking , get the XP again , upload the file again to Garmin Connect , XP again. It is what it is I guess. Use it as you see fit.
I’ve had varying levels of success XP farming on the climb portal. However, over my last 9 consecutive climb portal ascents I have not received a single 250xp bonus. To me that seems to be statistically impossible, but Zwift customer support says that I’m just unlucky.
Are you on a TT bike?
Nope, I made sure before the ride started that my climbing frame and wheels were selected. I even went stopped to verify the setup.
I’ve been using the Climb Portal challenge this month to get the “Legs of Steel” achievement.
Mur De Bretagne is only 4.5km long and has 140m climbing. You can also reduce this by 50% before starting the climb and it still counts every time you complete the climb.
Easy way to get that 500xp achievement
Sorry, it’s actually 1000XP Achievement
I couldn’t see that this has been mentioned (apologies if I missed it) – As everyone knows, riding an Entry-Level bike that has been upgraded to Stage 5 gets you 21 & 31 XP per KM/Mile. BUT IN ADDITION, riding that bike on a new course will also get you the route bonus PLUS 5%. Discovered this yesterday when I received 866 XP route bonus on Accelerate to Elevate instead of the advertised 825.
Typo – should be 21 & 33 …
Leon
The math works for KM – 20 = 5% = 21XP. (whole numbers) (for an XP levelled up frame)
For Miles – 32 x 1.05 = 32.6XP.
On screen it shows 32 when completing each mile. Are those fractional .6XP adding up / accumulating somewhere? I haven’t seen anything in ZwiftInsider commenting about if the on-screen figure (32XP) is the actual granted or if 32.6XP is actually awarded. Small difference – but its about 2% less for miles, if only 32XP. Until someone can tell me otherwise – I’ve switched to KM!
You get 32, not 32.6. It’s always been advantageous to be in KM. Because they’re cycling units! 😜
Good call out, Leon! Yeah, that makes sense, since those bikes give you a 5% bonus on ALL XP earned. But I hadn’t thought about how that’s especially nice on new route achievements.
i’ve only received the 250xp bonus once in the past few months even though i received the big plus sign multiple times (only awarded 10 xp). i’m not riding a tt bike. any suggestions?
The small plus sign is right after the big on the spinner and since it activates instantly it looks like you hit big plus when actually the final symbol was the small plus