How to Sell Steam Trading Cards, Booster Packs and Gems
Summary: Steam trading cards, booster packs, emoticons and profile backgrounds can be sold on the Steam Community Market for Steam Wallet funds, under the same fees, holds and account requirements as other Market items. They sit in the Steam section of your inventory, not under their game. A complete card set can instead be crafted into a game badge. Community items can also be recycled into Steam Gems, which make booster packs and can only be sold once packed into a 1000-gem Sack of Gems. This guide compares each option with selling.
If you play games on Steam, you've probably built up a pile of trading cards without trying. Steam lets you sell them on the Community Market for Steam Wallet funds. This guide covers where cards come from, how to sell them, what Steam takes, and when you're better off keeping them for a badge or turning them into gems.
Everything about how Steam's systems work comes from Valve's own pages, linked in each section:
- Steam Trading Cards FAQ
- Steam Community Market FAQ
- Trade and Market Holds FAQ
- Trading and Market Restrictions FAQ
- Steam Holiday Auction page (how gems are made and used)
A note on our tool: Steam Bulk Sell builds Multisell links for game items such as CS2 cases or Rust skins. It doesn't currently support Steam's own "Steam" inventory, where trading cards live, so this guide uses Steam's built-in selling tools.
Can you sell Steam trading cards?
Yes. The Trading Cards FAQ answers it directly: "trading cards can be traded to other users and bought or sold on the Community Market." The same goes for the items you get from crafting badges. The FAQ says emoticons and profile backgrounds can be traded or put "up for sale on the Steam Community Market".
The money goes to your Steam Wallet. The Market FAQ says these funds "cannot be withdrawn or transferred to another Steam account or to a bank/3rd party account". In other words, selling cards gives you credit to spend on Steam, not cash.
Where your cards come from
Knowing how cards drop explains why most cards sell for small amounts and a few sell for more.
- Playing games. You get cards by playing participating games. The FAQ says most games drop "about half the number of cards in that game's set". Its example is Half-Life 2: 8 cards in the set, 4 drops from playing. The rest of the set has to come from trading or the Market.
- Free-to-play games. For games like Team Fortress 2 or Dota 2, drops are based on in-game spending: about one card drop for every $9 USD spent, according to the FAQ.
- Booster packs. Once you've used up a game's card drops, you can become eligible for a booster pack, "a set of 3 trading cards that may include both basic and foil cards". Packs are granted at random as other people craft badges. Higher Steam Levels raise your chance, for example +20% at level 10 and double the rate at level 50.
- Foil cards. Any drop has "a small chance" of being a foil. The FAQ says there's "no extra benefit to having foil cards or foil badges aside from their rarity". Because they're rarer, check a foil's own listing page rather than assuming it sells like the normal version.
You can check how many drops you have left for each game on your Badges page.
How to sell trading cards, step by step
1. Make sure your account can use the Market
Before you can list anything, Steam's account rules apply. The Market FAQ requires a successful purchase older than 7 days but not older than a year, plus Steam Guard enabled for 15 days. Redeeming a gift doesn't count. Our selling requirements checklist covers the full list of blockers, such as a new device or a recent password reset.
2. Open your inventory's Steam tab
Trading cards, booster packs, emoticons, backgrounds and gems all sit in the Steam section of your inventory, not under the game they belong to. Select a card and use the sell option, or open the Community Market and choose Sell an item. The Market FAQ notes that "only items that are eligible to be sold will be visible" when you pick something to sell.
3. Check the listing page before you price
Every card has a Market listing page. Each one shows:
- the lowest current listing ("for sale starting at"),
- the highest buy order ("requests to buy at"), and
- a Median Sale Prices chart.
Cards are commodity items: every copy of the same card is identical. That means they sell through buy orders, where buyers name a price and Steam matches them to the cheapest listing. The Market FAQ says buy orders let you "see what other users are willing to pay for an item, and you can choose if you want to do a lower price to sell immediately; or go for a higher price and wait".
- Want it gone now? Price at the highest buy order.
- Willing to wait? List at or just under the lowest listing.
4. Confirm the fees and the listing
Steam's Transaction Fee is 5% with a minimum of $0.01, and the Market FAQ says the buyer pays it on top of your price. The FAQ doesn't list a separate game fee for trading cards. Its list of 10% game fees covers Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, Dota 2 and Artifact items. The fees are shown before you confirm, so check what Steam says you'll receive.
The $0.01 minimum is what makes cheap cards awkward. On a $0.05 card, a $0.01 fee is 20% of the price. Our fees and holds explainer has a table of how the minimum works out at different prices.
5. Expect a hold without the Mobile Authenticator
If your account hasn't had a Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator for at least 7 days, the Holds FAQ says listings can be held for up to 15 days before they appear on the Market. With the authenticator, you confirm each listing on your phone instead. If you sell often, it's worth setting up.
Selling a lot of cards
Steam doesn't have a single button that lists your whole card inventory, so selling dozens of cards takes a little planning:
- Sort by value first. Open the listing pages for foils and for cards from popular games before anything else, and look at the buy orders. Cards with strong buy orders are worth listing first.
- Group the leftovers. For cards that only fetch a few cents, the $0.01 minimum fee takes a large share. Consider gems for those instead (see below).
- Watch the wallet cap. The Market FAQ limits Steam Wallet balances to $2000. You can't list an item if your balance plus the sale price would go over it.
- Remember sales are final. The Trading Cards FAQ is blunt: "All trades are final". Double-check the price before you confirm.
Sell, craft a badge, or make gems?
Selling isn't the only thing you can do with cards. A complete set can be crafted into a game badge. The Trading Cards FAQ says each craft gives you:
- a random emoticon for that game,
- a random profile background,
- a chance at a discount coupon, and
- 100 XP toward your Steam Level.
You can craft the same game's badge up to five times, getting 100 XP each time. Higher Steam Levels raise your booster pack rate, add friends-list slots, and unlock profile showcases from level 10. The emoticon and background you get can be sold on the Market too, so crafting doesn't mean giving up all the value.
The third option is to turn items into gems. It's covered in full in the next section.
A simple way to decide:
| If the card… | Usually best |
|---|---|
| is a foil, or from a popular game, with real buy orders | Sell it |
| completes a set you care about | Craft the badge |
| only sells for the minimum | Compare its gem value with what you'd actually receive |
Gems, booster packs and Sacks of Gems
Gems are Steam's own crafting currency for community items. Here's how they work, from Steam's Holiday Auction page and the Steam Market's own data.
How to make gems
Steam says you "can make Gems by recycling Steam Community Items from your Inventory". To do it:
- Open your inventory and select the Steam tab.
- Choose Community from the drop-down to see the eligible items.
- Select an item. You'll see its gem value and a button to recycle it.
Trading cards, emoticons and profile backgrounds all come from the Steam tab, so they're the items you'll usually recycle. Recycling an item removes it, so check what it would sell for before you convert it.
What gems are for
- Making booster packs. The Auction page says gems "can also be used to create Steam Trading Card Booster Packs". The same page links to Steam's Booster Pack Creator, which it describes as a way to "make booster packs from extra Steam Community Items in your inventory". You need to be signed in to Steam to use it. A booster pack is "a set of 3 trading cards that may include both basic and foil cards" (Trading Cards FAQ).
- Bidding in Steam auctions, when Steam runs one. During the Holiday Auction, gems were used for bids and returned to your inventory if the bid was cancelled.
- Selling, in sacks.
Selling gems: the Sack of Gems
You can't list loose gems. Steam says gems "can only be placed on the Community Market after being packed up into a Sack of Gems". The Sack of Gems listing describes each sack as "1000 Gems". Steam's item data, checked October 26, 2026, flags it as a commodity, and an owner can unpack a sack back into gems from the inventory.
That makes gems a way to sell low-value items in one go. Recycle cards and backgrounds that only fetch the minimum, pack the gems into sacks, and sell the sacks. The usual Market rules apply: the 5% Steam Transaction Fee (minimum $0.01), the $2000 wallet cap and holds if you haven't had the authenticator for 7 days (fees and holds).
Sell cards, or recycle them?
| Option | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Sell the card | Foils, cards from popular games, anything with solid buy orders | The $0.01 minimum fee on cheap cards |
| Craft a badge | Completing a set: 100 XP, an emoticon, a background and a chance at a coupon | Uses up the whole set |
| Recycle into gems | Cards and backgrounds that only sell for a cent or two | Can't be undone. Gems only sell 1000 at a time, in a sack |
| Make a booster pack | Getting new cards for a game you own | Packs are random. The cards may be worth less than the gems you spent |
Before you recycle, compare the item's gem value with what you'd actually receive from selling it. Then compare the sack's current price with how many gems you'd get. Both prices are on the Market pages, so the decision is just arithmetic.
Common problems
- The sell option is missing. Your account may not meet the Market requirements yet, or the item isn't marketable. Check the restrictions FAQ or our can't-sell troubleshooting guide.
- The listing isn't showing on the Market. It's probably in a market hold. Check your listings on the Market home page.
- Can't use the Market from a new PC. The Restrictions FAQ says a device that Steam Guard hasn't authorized before can't trade or use the Market for 7 days, unless you've had the Mobile Authenticator for at least 7 days.
Selling game items too?
Cards are only part of a Steam inventory. If you also have stackable game items, such as CS2 cases, Rust skins or TF2 crates and keys, Steam Bulk Sell can put all of a game's commodity items into one Multisell link. Start from the game list, or read the Multisell guide first.