How to Sell Stolen Items in Skyrim? Complete Thieves Guide

If you wondering how to sell stolen items in Skyrim, then follow our complete guide to making some cash from being a sneaky thief in the game!

One of the most fun parts of Skyrim is to sneak around and steal items from NPCs or their houses. While you might get into trouble when caught, the adrenaline – and free items – that you get from stealing is great. However, if you steal certain items, you cannot sell them outright to merchants since they know that the item is stolen. You might think that the item is useless since no merchant is willing to purchase it. However, we will show you how to sell stolen items in Skyrim.

To sell any stolen item in Skyrim, you must head over to the Thieves Guild and talk to the Fence there. You can sell any stolen item to the Fence if you meet the prerequisite quest of the guild.

While this sounds easier said than done, we will show you how to join the Thieves Guild and how you can start doing business with various Fences around the world of Skyrim. With that said, let’s take a look at how to sell stolen items in Skyrim and how you can join the Thieves Guild.

Guide Contents

How to Join the Thieves Guild

First thing’s first, you need to interact – and join – the Thieves Guild to gain access to Fences. To do this, you need to head over to Riften and speak with Brynjolf. If you visit the town during the day, he can be found in the streets of the market. If you are going to visit him during the night, he will be located in the Bee and Bard tavern.

Regardless of where you meet him, you need to talk to him, enter the guild’s hideout, and become a member. Keep in mind that Brynjolf will give you a short quest that you’ll have to do in order to progress. This quest involves you stealing a ring and placing it on another person to frame them.

Even if you fail this quest, you’ll still get the next quest, so, don’t worry. For the next quest, travel in the canals in the area and defeat any bandits that you see. After doing that, head over to the guild’s hideout and get your next quest. That is an easy quest that you can do without any problems so you shouldn’t have any problems there.

Once you are in the guild successfully, you need to ensure that you follow certain rules. After all, there are some heroes among thieves as well. To ensure that you do not get kicked out of the guild, you need to make sure that you do not assault or murder any guild member.

Secondly, you also need to make sure that you do not steal from the guild and get caught. You will be fine as long as you don’t get caught but why risk it? If you do find yourself kicked out, simply pay 1000 gold and you can join the guild again.

Doing Business With the Fences

Now that you have successfully become a member of the acclaimed Thieves Guild, you can talk to Tonilia the Fence. There are a total of 7 Fences to which you can sell your stolen goods to. However, each of them requires a small quest to be done before you can earn their trust and start doing business with them.

The first set of Fences can be unlocked by doing their respective quests:

Mallus Maccius: located in Honningbrew Meadery near Whiterun. Complete the quest “Dampened Spirits.”
Gulum-Ei: located in The Winking Skeever in Solitude. Complete the quest “Scoundrel’s Folly.”
Enthir: located in the Hall of Attainment in Winterhold. Complete the quest “Hard Answers.”

You can unlock these Fences relatively early on in the game. Keep in mind that each Fence has their own gold that they can give to you for stolen items. If they run out of gold, you need to wait a while before they can restock it. Alternatively, you can buy items from them to increase their gold so that you can sell them more expensive items later on.

The next set of Fences are only available after you complete the City Influence quests from Vex and Delvin Mallory.

Niranye: located in Windhelm, east of the main gate. Complete the quest “Summerset Shadows.”
Endon: located in the Silver-Blood Inn within Markath. Complete the quest “Silver Lining.”
Any Khajiit Caravan: located in various parts of the world in Skyrim. Complete a Miscellaneous Quest given by Tonilia once the Thieves Guild has a strong influence in Skyrim.

Having all the Fences unlocked is a good thing since you will be able to sell more items without having to wait. Plus, having more Fences means that you can do business with them in various locations without having to come back to where the unlocked Fence is located.

If you do not want to enter the Thieves Guild, you can sell stolen items to normal merchants. However, for that, you need to level up the Speech skill tree and unlock the Fence perk. However, this will take quite some time as you unlock it when you are around Speech 90.

Looking for more Skyrim content? Check out these guides:

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is available to play on Steam.