CS2 has five skin quality levels, from best to worst: Factory New (FN), Minimal Wear (MW), Field-Tested (FT), Well-Worn (WW) and Battle-Scarred (BS). Quality is set by float, a number between 0 and 1: Factory New means a float up to 0.07, Battle-Scarred means 0.45 and above. The levels and their float bounds carried over from CS:GO to Counter-Strike 2 unchanged.
The levels differ only in how worn the skin is, and that has a big effect on price: the AK-47 | Asiimov, for example, currently costs about $290 in Factory New and about $35 in Battle-Scarred.
Below we go through each of the five levels, from best to worst, describe what sets each one apart, and show how they look on a single skin for a single weapon.
One more important point. Players often ask whether a skin wears out over time. It does not: the float is set once, when the skin drops, and never changes afterward. You can play thousands of matches with a pristine skin and it will stay exactly the same; more on that in our guide on how skins wear in CS2.
Skin quality levels in CS2
Quality is graded by wear, and there are currently five levels. They differ visibly: show an experienced player a few copies of the same skin at different wear levels, and they will name the quality of each almost without hesitation. After this article, you will be able to do the same.
Here are the levels, from best to worst:
Factory New, abbreviated FN.
Minimal Wear, abbreviated MW.
Field-Tested, abbreviated FT.
Well-Worn, abbreviated WW.
Battle-Scarred, abbreviated BS: the most worn skins.
The role of float in CS2 skin quality
Float measures how worn a skin is and how many defects it shows. Visually, wear shows up as scuffs, scratches and chipped paint. The more of them there are, the less attractive the skin looks and the less players value it.
Float is a number between 0 and 1. The closer it is to zero, the higher the quality. If you want a cheap copy of a popular skin, look for a high float; note that many skins have a float cap below 1 (for the AK-47 | Asiimov it is 0.7). These copies will be heavily worn with a blurry design, but the rule holds: more wear means a lower price.
Float maps to quality as follows:
0 to 0.07: Factory New.
0.07 to 0.15: Minimal Wear.
0.15 to 0.38: Field-Tested.
0.38 to 0.45: Well-Worn.
0.45 to 1: Battle-Scarred.
Keep in mind that every skin has its own float range within this scale. That is why not every skin exists in all five wears: if a skin's range starts at, say, 0.14, there is no Factory New version of it. The chance of getting a particular wear depends on that range, and Valve does not publish official odds per wear. The rarest copies with near-zero floats are collected in our list of skins with the lowest float in CS2.
Factory New
Skins in this condition are considered the most attractive and sought after, and naturally they are the most expensive. Their key traits:
No scratches or other damage. You will not find any defects on these skins; their look is flawless.
Rich colors and sharp detail. Factory New skins look vivid, and even the smallest details are visible, simply because nothing is worn away.
The highest value in the community. No explanation needed: the better the condition, the higher the price.
Collector appeal. Players with big budgets often build collections of good-looking skins, and Factory New copies draw the most attention.
Minimal Wear
This is the next step down from Factory New. These skins have the following traits:
Minor damage. Look closely and you will notice light, often barely visible scuffs or scratches. But the designs are usually still crisp, so in practice the difference from Factory New is small.
Slightly less saturated color. This is where the difference shows most: because of the minor wear, the colors look a little less vivid.
A lower, more affordable price. That follows logically: with some wear and slightly duller colors, the price is lower than for a Factory New copy of the same skin.
A following of its own. It may come as a surprise, but some players prefer Minimal Wear for its slightly more realistic look compared with the perfectly "polished" Factory New.
Field-Tested
This is the third quality level, and signs of use are clearly visible. Its main traits:
Moderate damage. Even inexperienced players notice the wear right away: chips, scratches and other marks are easy to see, so the overall look is less appealing than at higher qualities.
A lower price. Because Field-Tested skins show visible wear and damage to the design, they cost less.
Duller colors and less detail. Design elements such as ornaments become less sharp and sometimes broken up by wear.
Collector interest. Some skins get a distinctive look from particular scratches, which makes certain copies valuable to fans.
Well-Worn
The fourth and second-to-last quality level. Its characteristic traits:
Very visible wear. The paint is worn so much that parts of the design are simply gone, exposing the bare metal or plastic of the weapon.
Dull colors and low detail. Little remains of the color scheme you see on Factory New, and small details are sometimes almost invisible.
A price most players can afford. The lower the quality, the lower the price, so Well-Worn skins suit players on a tight budget. That said, some players simply like worn skins because they fit their style and personality.
A narrow float range. Well-Worn covers only 0.38 to 0.45, so for some skins there are few such copies on the market, and they cost almost as much as Field-Tested.
Battle-Scarred
This is the most worn level, and its visual appeal is minimal. You can recognize it by these signs:
Maximum wear. The weapon shows deep scratches, as if it had been through hundreds of fights.
Very faded colors and almost no detail. Sometimes almost nothing remains of the original design: patterns and ornaments are barely visible, and the skin looks blurred, patchy or broken into pieces.
The lowest prices on the market. Battle-Scarred is valued lowest, so these skins are the most affordable for most players. Some skins actually look more interesting at high float, though; see examples in our list of beautiful CS2 skins with high float.
The widest float range. Battle-Scarred covers 0.45 to 1, more than half of the whole scale, so for skins with a full float range these copies are common.
Skin examples
Now that we have covered the differences between the quality levels, it is time to show what they look like in practice.
We will use the AK-47 | Asiimov. It is a Covert skin from the 2018 Danger Zone Case, it exists in all five wears, and its float range runs from 0.05 to 0.7.
Let's start with Factory New. It looks perfect, of course: not a single scratch or chip, and the brightest colors. A copy like this costs about $290.
The design is futuristic. The base is white, covered with bold orange and black stripes and complemented by geometric shapes and crosses on different parts of the body.
By the way, for this skin the Factory New range starts at 0.05 and ends at 0.07.
Next comes Minimal Wear. The changes on the Asiimov are subtle but already there: the colors are a bit less rich and bright, and the first scuffs appear on the protruding parts of the rifle. The best thing about this copy is the price: about $55 versus roughly $290 for Factory New, so about five times cheaper for an almost clean skin.
In terms of scuffs and scratches, the Field-Tested Asiimov is not that different from Well-Worn. What stands out most is the clear shift of the colors toward duller tones: the skin seems to have lost its original freshness and brightness. It costs about $40.
Now the Well-Worn level. On the Asiimov the design is still intact, but small scratches are already visible on the magazine, and the top of the receiver is heavily worn. The colors are even darker, and the weapon looks increasingly dim. At about $40, Well-Worn costs about the same as Field-Tested, while there are many times fewer listings on the market.
At Battle-Scarred the changes are the biggest, even compared with Well-Worn. The magazine shows especially heavy chips and scuffs: instead of a continuous design you see a set of patches. Similar worn areas, though less severe, appear on the receiver and the stock. Still, the Asiimov looks quite decent even at its lowest quality, and it costs about $35. Some skins have almost nothing left of the design at this level: scraps of faded ornaments and muddy colors.
How to check a skin's quality
This is a practical question. The answer tells you how much you can get for a skin when you sell it, or how much budget you need when buying.
There are two ways to find out a skin's quality in CS2.
If you are buying, marketplaces usually show a two-letter abbreviation next to the skin image, such as FN (Factory New) or WW (Well-Worn). The full list of abbreviations is in the "Skin quality levels in CS2" section above. On LIS-SKINS the wear is part of every item name, for example AK-47 | Asiimov (Field-Tested), and each wear has its own product page with its own price, so you can compare all five qualities of the same skin side by side before you buy.
If you are selling, you need to check the quality of the skin you own.
You can do this in your inventory. Open Steam, click your username in the top right corner and choose Inventory from the menu.
Any weapon in the inventory can be inspected with the Inspect button.
In the inspect view, find the information icon at the bottom of the screen and hover over it. The wear value (float) will appear. If you are choosing a skin for a budget and are not sure which quality to take, see our guide on how to choose a skin in CS2, and for a short summary of all wears with their float bounds, see our article on CS2 skin wear levels in order.
