Do you need a subscription to play Final Fantasy XIV?

No, not to start. The free trial covers A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, and Shadowbringers, and lets you level any of the 20+ jobs up to 80 with no time limit on the account itself — that's roughly three expansions' worth of story before a subscription enters the picture. The trial has been extended more than once over the years, most recently in 2026 to add Shadowbringers on top of what was already there, so if you tried FFXIV a while back and remember hitting a wall much sooner, that wall has since moved.

The trial's restrictions are what push people to pay. Trial characters are capped at 300,000 gil, can't touch the market board or hold retainers, can't use shout, yell, or tell, and can't found or join a new Free Company (though joining an existing linkshell is fine). Party Finder recruitment is off, but joining a party or queuing through Duty Finder works normally, and PvP is unavailable outright.

To keep playing past level 80, you need to buy the game. Purchasing any license — the base game or the Complete Edition, which folds in the more recent expansions — gives you 30 days of subscription time for free. After that, a recurring monthly subscription through the Mog Station is mandatory; there's no way to keep an unlocked account playable without one.

Expansions are not part of the subscription. The monthly fee keeps your access to whatever you already own switched on, but Endwalker and Dawntrail are separate purchases layered on top of the base license, the same way mounts bought from the online store sit outside what your subscription covers. Paying monthly gets you back into the game — it doesn't hand you content you haven't bought.