Charms are small dangling trinkets — keychains — that attach to a weapon and swing with it as you move and inspect. Valve introduced them with The Armory update on 2 October 2024. They are purely cosmetic and change nothing about how a weapon shoots.

How do you attach a charm in CS2?

From your inventory, apply the charm to a weapon and drag and drop it to place it. Valve’s patch notes are explicit that a weapon can only have one charm attached at a time, so charms do not stack the way stickers do.

Can you remove a charm without destroying it?

Yes, and this is the key difference from stickers. Removing a charm requires a Charm Detachment, and the charm returns to your inventory intact and can be reused on another weapon. Scraping a sticker consumes it; detaching a charm does not.

How do you get Charm Detachments?

Redeeming a charm from the Armory grants three complimentary Charm Detachments, and further detachments can be purchased. Charms bought on the market rather than redeemed do not come with free detachments attached to them.

Are CS2 charms tradeable?

Yes. Charms are their own item type with their own listings — they can be traded and bought or sold on the Steam Community Market and third-party marketplaces, subject to the usual Steam trade holds and cooldowns that apply to any CS2 item.

A Complete Guide to CS2 Weapon Charms

Keychains for your guns — and the one rule that makes them behave nothing like stickers

TL;DR

Charms are dangling cosmetic trinkets added by The Armory update on 2 October 2024. You attach one per weapon and drag it into position. Removing it needs a Charm Detachment — but the charm survives and returns to your inventory, so it is fully reusable. Charms are tradeable and marketable items in their own right.

Counter-Strike cosmetics were, for a decade, painted onto the gun. Charms broke that habit: they hang off the weapon, sway when you move, and are the first CS2 cosmetic you can meaningfully reposition. Valve shipped them alongside The Armory on 2 October 2024.

They also behave differently from stickers in a way that matters if you spend money on them, and that difference is the reason this page exists.

Where charms come from

The Armory. Activate an Armory Pass, earn Armory Credits as you gain XP, and redeem those credits for items — charms among them. This is the only route that grants free detachments (more on that below).
The Steam Community Market. Charms are marketable, so anything someone else redeemed can be bought outright.
Third-party marketplaces and trades. The same channels you would use for any other CS2 item — our trading guide covers doing that without getting scammed.

Charms are grouped into collections, and every one released so far is catalogued in the CS2 charm database with live marketplace pricing.

Attaching a charm

Open your inventory and select the charm.
Choose the weapon you want it on.
Drag and drop to place it. Valve's wording is "precisely place them on the weapon of your choice" — the position is yours to pick, not something the game rolls for you.

One constraint, and it is a hard one: a weapon can have one charm attached at a time. There is no equivalent of a four-sticker craft. If you want a different charm on that gun, the current one has to come off first.

Attaching costs nothing. It is the removal that has a price attached.

Detaching — and why charms are not stickers

Removing a charm requires a Charm Detachment. Use one, and per Valve's patch notes "the Charm will return to your inventory and can be reused". Nothing is destroyed and nothing is degraded.

	Charms	Stickers
Per weapon	One	Up to four
Position	You place it	You place it
Removing it	Needs a Charm Detachment	Scrape
Survives removal?	Yes — returns to inventory	No — destroyed
Reusable on another gun?	Yes	No

That table is the whole argument for treating charms as an asset rather than a consumable. A sticker applied to a rifle is a spend; a charm applied to a rifle is still a charm. Compare it with what happens when you scrape a sticker and the asymmetry is obvious.

How you get detachments: redeeming a charm from the Armory grants three complimentary Charm Detachments, and additional ones are available for purchase. A charm you bought on the market instead of redeeming does not arrive with free detachments, so budget for that if you plan to move it around.

Patterns

Charms carry a pattern index in the same way skins do. It is assigned by Valve when the item is created, it cannot be influenced, and it is fixed for the life of that item — detaching and reattaching does not reroll it.

On charms whose design supports it, that index shifts the colouring, which is why marketplace listings and pattern-checker sites quote a number and why particular values trade at a premium. It is the same collector dynamic that drives Case Hardened patterns, applied to a much smaller object.

Two things worth separating, because they get conflated constantly:

Pattern is a property of the charm item. It travels with it through trades and you cannot change it.
Placement is where you dragged it on that particular weapon. It is your choice, and it resets when you detach and reattach.

You can see both on any listed item with the inspect tool, which reads the item's actual data rather than the seller's description.

Charms as tradeable items

Charms are a distinct item type with their own market, not an add-on bundled into a skin's price. Practical consequences:

They trade and sell independently of the weapon they were on — take the charm off, and it is a standalone item again.
Ordinary Steam trade restrictions apply, exactly as they do to skins and cases. Nothing about charms exempts them from trade holds.
Because attachment is reversible, a charm on a gun is not sunk cost. That changes the maths compared with stickers, and it is worth reading alongside our skins investing guide before you treat any of it as an investment.

For current pricing across marketplaces, use the charm database rather than a single storefront — prices diverge between markets, and one listing is not the market.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are CS2 charms?: Charms are small dangling trinkets — keychains — that attach to a weapon and swing with it as you move and inspect. Valve introduced them with The Armory update on 2 October 2024. They are purely cosmetic and change nothing about how a weapon shoots.
How do you attach a charm in CS2?: From your inventory, apply the charm to a weapon and drag and drop it to place it. Valve’s patch notes are explicit that a weapon can only have one charm attached at a time, so charms do not stack the way stickers do.
Can you remove a charm without destroying it?: Yes, and this is the key difference from stickers. Removing a charm requires a Charm Detachment, and the charm returns to your inventory intact and can be reused on another weapon. Scraping a sticker consumes it; detaching a charm does not.
How do you get Charm Detachments?: Redeeming a charm from the Armory grants three complimentary Charm Detachments, and further detachments can be purchased. Charms bought on the market rather than redeemed do not come with free detachments attached to them.
Are CS2 charms tradeable?: Yes. Charms are their own item type with their own listings — they can be traded and bought or sold on the Steam Community Market and third-party marketplaces, subject to the usual Steam trade holds and cooldowns that apply to any CS2 item.
What is a charm pattern?: Like skins, each charm is issued with a pattern index that is assigned when the item is created and never changes. On charms whose design supports it, that index shifts the colouring, so collectors chase particular values. Where the charm hangs is a separate matter — you choose that yourself when you attach it.