To quit a job in The Sims 4, select the employed Sim, open their phone and choose Business > Quit Job, then confirm the prompt; a Sim with a computer can do the same through Career > Quit Job. That is the whole method, and it works the same on PC, Mac, PlayStation and Xbox, because the phone and computer menus are identical on every platform. Below we cover both routes step by step, what your Sim actually loses when they resign, how rejoining a career works, and the career rules that Maxis changed in patches from November 2025 through September 2026.
Quit From the Phone or a Computer
The phone is the fastest route. Per EA’s own careers guide, the steps are:
- Select the Sim whose job you want to quit. Quitting is per Sim, so if two household members work you have to do it twice.
- Click the phone icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen (on a controller, open the phone from the same corner of the Live Mode HUD).
- Pick the Business tab, the one with the briefcase icon, and choose Quit Job.
- Confirm that you want the Sim to leave their current job.
The computer route is the same idea: click any computer your household owns, choose Career, then Quit Job, and confirm. There is no difference in outcome, so use whichever is closer.
You can also see the job you are about to leave in the Career panel, the briefcase icon at the bottom-right of the screen in Live Mode. That panel shows the current job, work schedule, available vacation days and promotion requirements, which is worth a glance before you resign, because it tells you what career level you are giving up.
What Quitting Actually Costs
Quitting has no direct penalty. There is no fine, no moodlet that punishes the decision, and no cooldown before your Sim can look for another job. What changes is money: the daily paycheck stops the moment the Sim resigns, so a household that lives shift to shift needs a plan. Our guide to making money fast in The Sims 4 covers the freelance, painting, writing and gardening income that bridges the gap.
The other cost is career level. A Sim who quits a Level 7 job and later takes a completely different career starts that new career at Level 1. Per EA’s careers guide, the exception is a career the Sim has held before: Sims usually start a new job at Level 1 unless they have been in that career previously, in which case they pick up closer to where they left off. So if the plan is a short break rather than a permanent change, quitting and rejoining the same career is far less painful than switching tracks.
Career reward objects that the Sim already unlocked stay unlocked in Build Mode. Skills are untouched too, and they carry over: a Sim leaving the Tech Guru career keeps every point of Programming, so if you maxed a skill for the old job it still counts toward promotion requirements in the next one.
Take a Break Without Quitting
If your Sim just needs a day off, do not quit. The Career panel lists available vacation days, and Take Vacation Day on the phone spends one. Verified against the November 4, 2025 patch notes: that update changed the rule so the option is only offered when the Sim’s next shift is within the next 24 hours. Careers with a few days off in a row now grey the button out until the last free day, with a tooltip that explains the 24-hour window. Before that patch the option was available whenever a Sim had vacation days banked, so if you remember it being always-on, that is why it changed.
Two other career fixes matter if you have been avoiding a job because it felt broken. The September 22, 2026 update (PC 1.128.90.1030, console version 2.39) restored Negotiate a Bonus on the phone, which had been appearing in the menu and then silently failing for non-Noble careers. The June 30, 2026 patch stopped Freelancer Sims from receiving gig calls and pop-ups for freelance careers they were not in, and the August 6, 2026 patch fixed the countdown timer for careers, school and after-school activities that had been stuck at 0 minutes. As of the current build, none of those are reasons to resign.
Finding the Next Job
Once unemployed, the same two menus fill the gap: Business > Find a Job on the phone, Career > Find a Job on a computer, or Join a Career from the Career panel. The list shows every career your installed packs allow, and the Career panel then tracks the daily task and promotion requirements for the new one.
Three alternatives to a traditional career are worth knowing:
- Part-time jobs are rabbit-hole careers with a morning or evening shift, and they are open to teens as well as adults.
- Freelancer careers pay per gig rather than per day, so a Sim can work when the household needs money and ignore the phone when it does not.
- Small businesses from the Businesses and Hobbies expansion let a Sim earn from a lot they run, with no employer to quit at all. Our guide on starting a business in The Sims 4 walks through the setup.
For everything else in the series, the Sims guide hub collects our Sims 2, 3 and 4 coverage in one place.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a Sim quit a job from the Career panel? No. The panel shows the current job and lets an unemployed Sim join a career, but resigning is done from the phone (Business > Quit Job) or a computer (Career > Quit Job).
Does quitting a job lower a Sim’s skills or aspiration progress? No. Skills, aspiration milestones and unlocked career reward objects all stay. The only things lost are the paycheck and the career level in that track.
Can a Sim take the same job back at the old level? Per EA’s careers guide, Sims usually start a new job at Level 1 unless they have been in that career before, in which case they do not start from scratch. Switching to a different career always starts at Level 1.
Why is the Take Vacation Day button greyed out? Since the November 4, 2025 patch it only activates when the next shift is within 24 hours. Wait until the day before the shift and it becomes available again.
Can teens quit jobs too? Yes. Teen part-time jobs use the same phone menu, and quitting works identically. A teen who quits keeps going to school as normal.