GTA Online Snow Watch: When Los Santos Turns Into a Winter Wonderland

Holiday mode is rolling in, and if you play GTA Online, you know the real question isn’t what gifts you’re getting — it’s when Los Santos turns into a snow globe. Rockstar, as usual, hasn’t said a word yet. But the pattern is there, and it’s not that hard to read.

So... when does the snow hit Los Santos?

Rockstar tends to flip the snow switch right before Christmas, tucked into a routine weekly update or quick hotfix — the kind that usually lands on a Tuesday or Thursday. Based on the last few years, we’re probably looking at around December 20, 2025. That lines up with how they’ve handled it recently, without cutting it too close to the holiday.

• 2021: Snow arrived on December 22
• 2022: December 22 again
• 2023: Pushed a day earlier, December 21
• And there was a year it popped up on December 19 via update — the timeline’s a little messy, but the window is consistent

Once it’s in, expect it to stick around at least a week. And yes, all the usual holiday nonsense should be back: the Yeti encounter, the Christmas truck mission, snowball fights — the whole festive chaos package.

Before the snow: the winter DLC

Rockstar actually has a bigger drop coming first: the winter-themed DLC called 'A Safehouse in the Hills', set for December 10, 2025. The headline feature is one players have been asking for since forever: you can finally buy mansions. Yes, real mansions. After more than a decade of requests, they’re doing it.

Here’s the gist:

You’ll pick from three mansion locations, each built around that rich-people-in-the-hills lifestyle — indoor and outdoor spaces, the kind of place you actually want to show off. You can customize the whole thing and make it your own in a way that actually feels personal, not just ‘select a wallpaper and a lamp’ levels of customization.

On top of that, Michael De Santa strolls into GTA Online properly. He’s not just a cameo — he’s involved, he’s backing you up on missions, and he is very much still Michael. There’s new missions, new challenges, new cars, new weapons, and plenty to unlock. Judging by the vibe they’re teasing, expect him to cause trouble and, yes, possibly lob a chair into a TV. Feels right.

The bottom line

No official snow date yet — shocker — but history says mid to late December, likely right around December 20, via a regular update. It’ll hang around through the holiday with the usual events. In the meantime, the December 10 DLC should keep everyone busy building mansions and running jobs with Michael until the weather turns white in Los Santos.