inZOI Businesses Guide
Since the v0.5.0 update on December 23, 2025, your Zois can open and run their own businesses — cafes, bakeries, restaurants, bars — hiring staff, setting prices, and answering to customers.
It's the most substantial addition to how Zois earn money since loans and the Resale Store, and it works quite differently from a normal career.
If you own a business property, have a registered business, or are employed by one, you cannot use City Trips. To travel again you'd have to sell every business and business property, or resign. Worth knowing before you commit a household to a shop.
Getting started
Business presets do most of the setup for you, in two layers:
- Business type — cafe, bakery, restaurant, bar. Picking one automatically configures customer activities to match.
- Business activities — chosen from the Manage Business menu, setting the services on offer. A cafe gets "Drink Coffee", "Eat", and "Read a Book"; a restaurant gets "Order" and "Drink a Beverage".
More presets are promised in future updates. v0.5.3 added 12 business lot presets — 5 in Dowon, 6 in Bliss Bay, and 1 in Cahaya — so you don't have to build a shop from nothing.
Employees
- Hiring: you can hire acquaintances or household members. Employees must be Young Adult or older, and if they already have a job, they'll resign from it to join you.
- Assignment: select an employee to see their main skills and assign matching tasks — kitchen duties for good cooks, service roles for high Rhetoric.
- Capacity: the higher your business level, the more employees you can hire.
- Salaries are calculated from business level, salary rank, and hours worked, and paid after business hours. Employees can negotiate through conversation, and long hours damage your relationship with them.
- Autonomy: staff automatically take orders, cook, prepare drinks, display items, handle payments, clean, repair, and watch the counter. They clock in and out with business hours.
Customers and satisfaction
Customers arrive automatically during business hours and stay for a set time. Higher business value attracts more of them, and you can set the age group of your target clientele.
Customer satisfaction is the engine of the whole system. It's driven by:
- Your relationship with the business owner
- Furniture quality
- Whether prices are appropriate
- How often business activity services get used
- Employee responsiveness and overall service quality
You can read satisfaction in real time through customer thought bubbles, and in the customer reviews shown at the end of each business day. You can also ask customers directly for "Feedback", or use "Search for Tips to Improve Customer Satisfaction" on a computer.
Money
- Automated settlement — profits are calculated and logged at the end of each business day. Total income, total expenses, and net profit appear in the Profit Summary menu.
- Flexible pricing — set service costs in tiers from the Manage Business menu, applying discounts or premium pricing to entrance fees and item prices.
Growing the business
Business value rises with customer satisfaction. Higher value means more customers and more employees — but also higher customer expectations, raising the baseline service they demand. It's a treadmill, not a one-way ratchet.
Franchises
- A single household can own multiple businesses, in one industry or spread across several.
- Businesses are managed independently of property, so they can be moved to a different property, or passed to the household's eldest member on marriage or separation.
Building for business
39 business-property-exclusive items shipped with the system — a Business Market Stand, a Display Showcase, and 35 display models — found in Business Property Edit mode. See the item breakdown.
New business properties were also added to existing cities. On a "Continue" save you must run Refresh Property Manually under Game Options → Gameplay → Other for them to work correctly.
Update history
- December 23, 2025 — v0.5.0 introduced the business system: presets, franchises, employees, customers, satisfaction, and profit settlement, along with the Baking and Drink Mixing skills and a Business Success ambition.
- December 24, 2025 — v0.5.1 fixed entry to NPC-run business lots, unpaid lecture revenue, and food selling at the same price regardless of quality.
- December 30, 2025 — v0.5.2 fixed customers occasionally being unable to enter, and operator names displaying incorrectly.
- January 9, 2026 — v0.5.3 added 12 business lot presets and food portioning, and fixed employee work schedules failing to generate plus several "Give Lecture" problems.
- January 15, 2026 — v0.5.4 moved drink mixing to a new Drink Dispenser object and fixed table-setting after portioning.
- February 24, 2026 — v0.6.1 fixed "Restock Fruit Drinks" outside business hours.