How to Vote Kick in CS2
The menu route, the console route, and why most kick votes fail
Press Esc → Call Vote → Kick Player and pick the name. Teammates answer with F1 (yes) or F2 (no). The console equivalent is callvote kick
Vote kicking is CS2's only in-match tool for removing a teammate who is AFK, griefing or throwing. It is deliberately hard to pass, because a system that removed players easily would be far more useful to the people abusing it than to the people using it properly.
There are two routes to the same vote — a menu one that everybody can use and a console one that is faster and is the only practical way to target yourself.
Method 1: the Esc menu
- Press Esc during the match to open the game menu.
- Click Call Vote.
- Choose Kick Player.
- Select the teammate you want removed. The vote goes out to your team immediately.
- Everyone else answers with F1 for yes or F2 for no.
This is the route to use in a normal match. It needs no console, no player IDs and no typing while you are alive.
Method 2: the callvote console command
callvoteis a real CS2 command — the game describes it as "start a vote on an issue", and kicking a player is one of those issues. The syntax is:
- Turn the developer console on in Settings → Game and open it with ~. Our console guide walks through it if the key does nothing.
- Type
statusand press Enter. This prints the connection status for everyone on the server, including the ID number attached to each name. - Type
callvote kickfollowed by that ID number and press Enter. The vote panel appears for your team exactly as it would from the menu.
A companion command, listissues, prints every issue the server you are connected to will actually let you vote on. That is the honest way to find out whether kicking is even enabled where you are, rather than guessing — community servers frequently switch parts of the vote system off. Both commands are in our full CS2 console command reference, alongside status.
How a kick vote actually passes
Three rules explain nearly every failed kick:
- Only your team votes.The enemy team never sees your kick vote, so "the other team saved him" is never the reason it failed.
- The target does not get a vote. That is what makes self-kicking awkward — you cannot vote yourself out.
- It has to be effectively unanimous. With a full five-player team there are four remaining voters once the target is excluded, and all four need to say yes. A single F2, or one person who simply ignores the popup, is enough to fail it.
There is also a party rule: a premade four-stack cannot vote out the solo-queued fifth player. Without it, four friends could clear any random teammate they disliked out of the lobby, which is exactly the abuse the whole system is built to prevent.
The abuse protections
Valve is explicit that kicking teammates too often earns youa Competitive cooldown — and that it applies whether you called the vote yourself or only pressed F1 to agree with someone else's. Those cooldowns are aimed at players abusing the option, not at the occasional justified kick, and like all Counter-Strike cooldowns they escalate with repeat offences.
The vote system is also rate-limited on the server side rather than by the client. If you run your own server, these are the settings that govern it:
| Command | What it controls |
|---|---|
sv_allow_votes | Whether voting works at all on the server |
sv_vote_issue_kick_allowed | Whether kick votes specifically are permitted |
sv_vote_creation_timer | How often one player can individually call a vote |
sv_vote_failure_timer | How long a failed vote cannot be re-submitted for |
sv_vote_timer_duration | How long the vote panel stays open |
sv_vote_quorum_ratio | The minimum ratio of players who must vote for an issue to resolve |
sv_vote_allow_in_warmup | Whether votes can be started during warmup |
sv_vote_disallow_kick_on_match_point | Whether kick votes are blocked on the match point round |
Valve does not publish the values it runs on official matchmaking servers, so treat the list above as the shape of the system rather than as numbers you can rely on in Premier. What it does tell you is why a vote sometimes refuses to start at all: you called one too recently, the same vote just failed, or the server has that issue switched off.
How to kick yourself out of a match
This is the most-searched version of the question, usually because someone needs to leave without hitting the disconnect button. The method is the same vote, aimed at your own name:
- Open the console and run
statusto find your ID number in the list. - Run
callvote kickwith your own ID — or use the Esc menu and select yourself. - Wait. You have no vote here, so it passes only if every one of your teammates says yes.
Because it needs a clean sweep from people who are mid-round and mostly ignoring popups, asking in team chat first is far more effective than calling the vote cold.
The part people miss: it still counts as abandoning
Getting vote kicked out of a Competitive or Premier match is not a clean exit. You left an unfinished match, and the game treats it that way — a Competitive cooldown on your account plus the rating or skill-group damage that comes with a match you did not finish. Kicking yourself does not launder the penalty; it just changes who pressed the button.
Repeat abandons stack into longer cooldowns, and a pattern of leaving early feeds into Trust Factor, which quietly shapes the lobbies you get matched into afterwards. If you are grinding rank, the cheapest option is nearly always to play the match out.
One thing vote kicking is not for: removing bots. That is a different command entirely, covered in our kick bots guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do you vote kick someone in CS2?
- Press Esc to open the game menu, choose Call Vote, then Kick Player, then pick the teammate. Your team votes with F1 for yes and F2 for no. You can also start the same vote from the developer console with callvote kick followed by the player’s ID number.
- What is the vote kick console command in CS2?
- callvote. It is a real CS2 server command described as "start a vote on an issue", and kicking is one of those issues, so the full form is callvote kick <playerID>. Run status first to list everyone in the server with their ID numbers. Typing listissues shows which votes the server you are on actually allows.
- How many votes does a kick need to pass in CS2?
- The vote only goes to your own team, and the player being voted on does not get a vote. In a five-player team that leaves four voters, and all of them have to agree — one no vote is enough to sink it.
- Can four players in a party kick the fifth solo player?
- No. A premade party of four cannot vote out the solo-queued fifth player. It is a deliberate anti-abuse rule, because otherwise a four-stack could remove any random teammate at will.
- How do you kick yourself in CS2?
- You start a kick vote against your own name, either from the Esc menu or with callvote kick and your own player ID from status. You cannot vote on your own kick, so it only passes if every remaining teammate votes yes — which is why asking them in chat first works better than spamming the vote.
- What happens if you get vote kicked in CS2?
- Being removed from a Competitive or Premier match is treated the same as leaving it early, so it carries the usual abandon consequences: a Competitive cooldown and the rating or skill-group loss that comes with an unfinished match. Valve also issues cooldowns to players who kick teammates too often, whether they called the vote or only pressed F1.