Back on the Beach – How to Appeal a Rust Ban

The grounds Facepunch relies on

Facepunch's Terms of Service, last updated on 15 July 2025, prohibit cheating in a wide sense. The rule covers the creation, use or distribution of cheats, exploits, scripts, bots and similar software, and also encouraging cheating, knowingly playing with cheaters or benefitting from cheating without cheating oneself. A player who is banned for cheating, according to the same terms, loses access to the game and to any in-game purchases. Rust relies on Easy Anti-Cheat for detection, and its bans apply to the game account and are, in general, treated as permanent.

Rust, however, knows a second kind of ban that Facepunch does not impose. Community servers are run by their owners, whom Facepunch's guidelines for community servers make responsible for their servers and for dealing with players who use them in ways the owners do not accept. The dedicated server, moreover, lets owners synchronise one ban list across several servers through its centralised banning feature. Thus, the first step is to establish whether the notice comes from Easy Anti-Cheat, from Facepunch or from a server, since each of them decides only on its own ban.

Where the appeal goes

Section 10.2 of the Facepunch Terms of Service (checked on 26 October 2026) names three routes. Questions about a game ban or suspension that Facepunch itself issued go to Facepunch's support team, which will use reasonable efforts to explain the ban, though the terms add that it is not obliged to do so. A ban issued by Easy Anti-Cheat is appealed on the Easy Anti-Cheat appeal page, which asks players to contact the game's own support first, and a ban by Valve's VAC goes to Steam Support.

A ban on a community server falls outside all three routes. It shall be noted that Facepunch's guidelines exclude any liability of Facepunch for what happens on community servers. Hence, an appeal against a server ban goes to that server's administrators, usually through the website or Discord the server names, and a ticket to Facepunch will not lift it. Where a server shares its ban list with other servers, the appeal goes to whoever runs that list, since Facepunch provides no such list itself.

What the appeal should contain

An appeal to Easy Anti-Cheat starts with the reference ID shown with the ban, which is the only field the appeal form requires, whereas a request to Facepunch should name the Steam account, the date of the ban and the exact wording of the notice. Beyond these data, the request should state which programs ran on the PC at the time, including overlays, macro tools and anything launched alongside the game, and whether anyone else had access to the PC or the account.

The argument that someone else played, however, has limits in Rust. Facepunch's terms state that a breach committed by another person while using the account will not result in any sanctions being removed from it; the appeal should, therefore, rest on facts showing that the detected conduct did not take place. For a server ban, the appeal should name the server, the in-game name, the time and the rule the admins cited, and answer that rule in a few factual sentences.

After the decision

Easy Anti-Cheat states that an accepted appeal reverts the ban automatically. A refusal leaves the ban in place, and Facepunch's terms promise an explanation only as a matter of reasonable efforts. A second request, therefore, makes sense only with new facts that the first one could not contain, since repeating the same arguments adds nothing to the record.

Returning to the game with another account during a ban may itself breach Facepunch's terms, which allow Facepunch to cancel access to any or all of its services for a serious breach. Accordingly, this guide does not describe ways around a ban.

Current enforcement

Game Ban Appeal records on its ban-wave monitor whether a publisher is currently running a wider enforcement wave, and the Rust appeal page sets out the steps of an appeal in short form.

Frequently asked questions