EVE Online Reprocessing Guide: When to Refine vs Sell

You've got a pile of meta modules from a loot run. Sell them on the market as-is, or grind them into minerals and sell those? The answer is "it depends" — and the person who can calculate where that line falls is the one picking up ISK from stuff everyone else vendors.

Reprocessing turns items and ore back into minerals. It looks simple, but yield doesn't start at 100% — it starts at half, and skills, stations, and taxes stack on top of that. Miss this structure and you'll grind something thinking "the minerals are worth more!" and actually lose ISK.

This guide lays out the reprocessing yield formula, skills, and taxes with real numbers — then gets to the heart of it: when "sell vs. reprocess" and reprocessing arbitrage actually pay off, worked out in ISK.

What reprocessing produces

Reprocess an item or ore and you get minerals. EVE's eight minerals are Tritanium, Pyerite, Mexallon, Isogen, Nocxium, Zydrine, Megacyte, and Morphite. Every T1 module, ship, and charge is built from these, and reprocessing runs that process in reverse.

The key point: you only get back a fraction of what went into building the item. It's never 100%. That fraction is where profit and loss are decided.

Yield starts at 50%

First truth of reprocessing: the base yield at an NPC station is 50%. (A few stations sit between 30–50%, but most are 50%.) Grind a module with no skills and half its minerals come back. The whole game is raising that 50% with skills and facilities.

But here's the catch that trips people up: items and ore use completely different skills. Mix them up and your math is wrong from the start.

Items (modules, ships, charges) — Scrapmetal Processing only

Any item that isn't ore or ice is affected by exactly one skill: Scrapmetal Processing. The ore skills (Reprocessing, Reprocessing Efficiency) do nothing for items.

Item yield = station base × (1 + 0.02 × Scrapmetal Processing level)

Scrapmetal Processing gives 2% per level, +10% at V. So the maximum yield at a 50% highsec station with Scrapmetal V is 55%. That's the number for grinding looted modules or buying modules off the market to reprocess. If a trader or looter memorizes one yield figure, it's this 55%.

Heads up: Scrapmetal Processing is rank 5 with heavy prerequisites — Industry I, Reprocessing IV, Science IV, Reprocessing Efficiency V, and Metallurgy V. Worth it if you're serious about reprocessing income, but not a skill you pick up casually.

Ore — three skills multiplied together

Ore is different. Three skills stack multiplicatively.

Ore yield = base × (1 + 0.03×Reprocessing) × (1 + 0.02×Reprocessing Efficiency)
                 × (1 + 0.02×ore-specific Processing) × (1 + implant)

• Reprocessing: +3%/level (+15% at V)
• Reprocessing Efficiency: +2%/level (+10% at V, needs Reprocessing V)
• Ore-specific Processing (e.g. Veldspar Processing): +2%/level for that ore only (+10% at V)

All at V gets you to about 70% at a 50% highsec station (50% × 1.15 × 1.10 × 1.10 ≈ 69.6%). A Zainou 'Beancounter' implant (RX-801/802/804 for +1/2/4%) nudges it higher. This is the miner's domain.

The short version: items cap at 55%, ore caps at ~70%. Don't expect ore skills to help items.

Stations vs. structures

NPC stations start you at a 50% base. Want more? Go to a player structure (Upwell refinery).

• Athanor / Tatara refineries have a slightly higher base than NPC (51% / 52%), and fitting reprocessing rigs (T1/T2) raises it further.
• Security bonus: a rigged structure gets an extra multiplier by space — +6% in lowsec, +12% in nullsec/wormhole space. That's why the "perfect refine" setup is a T2-rigged Tatara out in null or a wormhole.

So the industrialist maximizing mineral recovery heads to a null-rigged Tatara, while the trader or looter grinding a bit in highsec just uses the NPC station's 55% (for items). Either way, where you grind determines your recovery rate.

Reprocessing tax

NPC stations tax the output (minerals) based on your standing with the station's owning corp.

• Standing 0 → 5% tax
• Falls linearly as standing rises, hitting 0% at standing 6.67
• The Connections social skill raises effective standing, cutting the tax further (~25% off corp tax at V)
• Player structures set their own tax — friendly ones are often 0%

So grinding at a random NPC station with no standing costs you another 5% of your recovered minerals. That turns a 55% yield into an effective ~52%.

Skills at a glance

Skill	Rank	Effect	Applies to
Scrapmetal Processing	5	Yield +2%/level (max +10%)	Items (modules, ships, charges)
Reprocessing	1	Yield +3%/level (max +15%)	Ore & ice
Reprocessing Efficiency	5	Yield +2%/level (max +10%)	Ore & ice
Ore-specific Processing	1	+2%/level for that ore	Specific ore
Connections	—	Higher standing → lower tax	Tax

As a looter or trader you only need Scrapmetal Processing plus Connections (for tax); if you mine your own minerals, you train the three ore skills up top.

Batch sizes — the ore gotcha

• Ore: you need at least 100 units of a single type to reprocess (1 unit for batch-compressed ore). Anything short of 100 just sits there unprocessed.
• Ice: 1 unit each.
• Items: reprocess individually — each module yields its mineral content × your yield.

In practice: when is reprocessing worth it?

Here's the part that matters. Grind on gut feeling and you'll lose ISK.

Sell or reprocess? (looted modules)

Say a meta module's mineral content is worth 1,000,000 ISK at market prices. Highsec NPC station, Scrapmetal V (55% yield), standing 0 (5% tax).

Recovered mineral value = 1.0M × 0.55        = 550k
Less 5% reprocessing tax = 550k × (1 − 0.05)  = 522.5k
Less 3.375% sales tax on selling (Accounting V) ≈ 505k
→ Net recovery from reprocessing ≈ 500k ISK

Now compare against the module's top buy order if you just sold it:

• Buy order 400k → reprocessing (500k) wins by 100k → grind it
• Buy order 600k → just sell it
• Break-even buy order ≈ 500k (about half the mineral value)

Rule of thumb: if the item's buy order is below roughly half its mineral content value (55% minus taxes, to be exact), reprocessing wins. Meta 0 (T1) modules with dismal buy orders are the usual suspects.

Reprocessing arbitrage

Apply the same logic to buying and it becomes arbitrage. Suppose you can instant-buy that module from a sell order for 300k.

Buy 300k (instant buy → no broker fee)
Reprocess recovery ≈ 500k (from above)
→ Profit ≈ 200k ISK

Instant-buying means no broker fee, and you only pay sales tax when you sell the minerals. Whenever an item trades below ~55% of its mineral content value, you can buy it, grind it, and sell the minerals for a profit.

Why does this mispricing happen? Bulk loot dumping, LP store output, and manufacturing oversupply push certain modules below their mineral value. And when mineral prices rise, more items slide into this "reprocessing profit zone." When minerals get cheap, the window closes — reprocessing arbitrage rides the mineral market.

Checklist before you grind

• Yield is 55% for items / ~70% for ore (highsec NPC). Not 100%.
• Items use only Scrapmetal Processing. Ore skills don't apply.
• Standing 0 adds a 5% reprocessing tax. Structures set their own (often 0%).
• Selling the minerals costs sales tax and broker fee again — fold that into your recovery figure.
• Reprocessing is irreversible. Decide sell-vs-grind after the math.
• Arbitrage windows open and close with mineral prices — watch the market.

Comparing an item's price against its mineral content by hand, listing by listing, is basically impossible. ISK Scout's reprocessing analysis bakes in yield, reprocessing tax, and live mineral prices to surface only the items that actually profit when reprocessed, ranked by net profit — the break-even math above, run across thousands of types automatically.

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Sources: EVE University Wiki (Reprocessing), EVE Online official materials. Yield and tax figures are current as of July 2026 and can change with CCP patches.