League of Legends Honor System: Levels and Rewards (2026)
The League of Legends honor system rates your behaviour on a scale from Honor 1 to Honor 5. Everyone sits at Honor 3 by default, with full chat. Good games and post-match honor votes move you up toward Honor 5, which unlocks a special recall, honor skins and more frequent BXP drops. Toxic play pushes you down to Honor 1 or 2, where chat gets restricted.
What is the honor system in League of Legends?
It’s Riot’s way of rewarding good behaviour instead of only punishing bad behaviour. Riot’s honor guide (updated May 31, 2026) describes it as a general reflection of a player’s behaviour in and out of game: sportsmanlike players get perks, while inappropriate behaviour leads to reduced rewards and limited communication.
So honor works on two sides at once. Play well with others and the game gives you small bonuses and a few exclusive cosmetics. Flame, grief or rack up penalties and you lose chat options and rewards. Most players never think about it. Why would they? That’s fine, because the default level already gives you everything except the Honor 5 extras. Honor only starts to matter when you drop below 3, or when you want the recall and the skins at the top.
What do the Honor levels mean in League of Legends?
Five levels, with Honor 3 as the neutral middle, and each step away from it in either direction changes something you’ll actually notice in your next games:
| Level | What it means | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Honor 1 | Repeated dishonourable behaviour | No All Chat, no Champ Select Chat, no Post-game Chat |
| Honor 2 | Recent negative behaviour | No All Chat and no Champ Select Chat |
| Honor 3 | Neutral default | All chat options available |
| Honor 4 | Consistently positive | More frequent honor BXP drops |
| Honor 5 | The highest level | Most frequent BXP drops, the Honor 5 recall and honor skins |
The chat limits are the part people notice. At Honor 2 you can still talk to your team in game, but champ select and all chat go quiet, and at Honor 1 even the post-game lobby is closed. Honestly, for many players that’s the first time they realise honor exists at all.
How do you get honor in League of Legends?
Mostly through post-game votes. After a match, you and the other players can hand out honor votes to members of either team, and you get at least one vote per game to give. Receiving honors from others is what moves your level up over time, together with simply playing without penalties.
Riot’s guide lists the kinds of behaviour honor is meant to reward: good communication and coordination, and being a positive influence on your team. In practice, that means the boring stuff: calling timers, pinging useful information, not typing after a bad play, and staying in the game when it’s going badly. Do it for a while and the honor follows. Funny enough, those same habits also tend to win more games, because a team that talks calmly makes fewer panicked decisions.
Giving honor costs nothing, too. Who doesn’t like getting one? Use your votes every game, on teammates or opponents who played well or stayed calm. It’s a small habit, and it’s the whole system working the way it should. Some players honor the enemy laner who played fair; that counts just as much as honoring a teammate.
How do you lose honor?
Through dishonourable play and penalties. Riot says honor reflects your current and most common actions, so a pattern of negative behaviour lowers it, and an active penalty for an account violation (chat restrictions, queue penalties, suspensions) pulls it down as well.
High honor also needs maintaining. Riot notes that if you reach Honor 4 or 5 and then stop communicating with your team, there’s a good chance you’ll drift back to Honor 3. So Honor 5 isn’t a badge you earn once; it’s a level you keep by continuing to play the way that got you there.
Leaving games deserves its own mention. Leaving or going AFK brings its own penalties, including the low priority queue, and those penalties count against your honor too.
Does the League of Legends honor system reset every season?
Not anymore. With patch 25.04, Riot reset everyone to Honor 3 once, and since that update honor no longer resets with a new season. Whatever level you build now carries over year after year.
That change matters for two reasons, and both of them affect ordinary players far more than the small group that chases Honor 5 every season, because for most players honor only comes up when something goes wrong, like a chat restriction that suddenly removes all chat right before an important ranked game, or a reward that fails to arrive after a season of grinding wins. Players with high honor don’t lose their progress every January, and players who fell to Honor 1 or 2 have to climb back through behaviour, not wait for a seasonal reset. Is that fairer? Most players seem to think so.
What are the Honor 5 rewards in the LoL honor system?
Three things, per Riot: the Honor 5 recall animation, access to honor skins, and the most frequent honor BXP drops. BXP is battle pass experience, so higher honor quietly speeds up event pass progress over a season.
The honor skins are the Three Honors line, which you can only get through the honor system rather than the store. Our page on the Three Honors skin line lists the skins in it. Honor 4 already gets more frequent BXP drops, so even without reaching 5 there’s something to gain.
Does honor affect ranked rewards?
Yes. End-of-season ranked rewards require good standing. For the end of 2025, Riot gave its rewards (including Victorious Draven) to players at Honor 3 or above. Drop to Honor 1 or 2 near the end of a ranked season and you can lose rewards you earned with your wins.
Put simply, that’s the most practical reason to care about honor, even if you never chase Honor 5. Fifteen ranked wins for a Victorious skin mean nothing if your honor is below 3 when rewards go out. Our LoL season dates page shows when the current season and its rewards wrap up.
How do you recover honor after a penalty?
By playing clean games, one after another. There’s no shortcut, no request form and no item that restores honor. After a chat restriction or a queue penalty ends, your honor starts to recover as your recent behaviour turns positive again, because the system looks at what you do now, not only at what happened once.
Recovery takes a while, and Riot designed it that way on purpose, for good reason. A few good games won’t erase a week of flaming, but a steady run of matches without reports and with the odd honor vote will bring you back to Honor 3 and its full chat. Look, the fastest way back is the same as the way up: mute anyone who gets under your skin and focus on the game.
How do you keep high honor?
Keep doing what got you there. A few habits make it much easier than it sounds, even on bad days:
- Mute early. If someone is tilting you, muting them protects your honor more than any reply.
- Ping useful information: enemy missing, summoner spells down, objectives up.
- Say something positive now and then; a “nice” after a good play costs two seconds.
- Never leave or go AFK, even in a lost game.
- Hand out your own honor votes every match.
Real talk: you don’t need to be a cheerleader. Players who say little but never flame, never leave and ping well tend to sit comfortably at Honor 3 or above, and that’s all ranked rewards ask for.
Is your LoL honor system level visible to others?
Not as a number on your profile for everyone to judge. Honor is mostly something you see yourself, through your level, the progress shown after games, and the rewards it unlocks. What other players do see are the honors handed out after a match, which show who the lobby appreciated that game.
For what it’s worth, that private design is deliberate. The point of the League of Legends honor system isn’t to rank people by niceness; it’s to nudge everyone toward games that are a bit more pleasant to play. Use your votes, keep chat calm, and the system takes care of the rest. And if you ever see your level drop, treat it as an early warning rather than a punishment: a few calm weeks fix it long before it costs you a ranked reward or your chat.
FAQ
What is the highest level in the League of Legends honor system?
Honor 5. It unlocks the Honor 5 recall, honor skins and the most frequent honor BXP drops.
What Honor level do you start at?
Honor 3, the neutral default with all chat options available. Since patch 25.04, honor no longer resets each season.
What happens at Honor 1 or 2?
At Honor 2 you lose All Chat and Champ Select Chat. At Honor 1 you also lose Post-game Chat.
How do I raise my honor?
Play positively and avoid penalties. Honors from other players in post-game voting move your level up over time.
Do you need honor for ranked rewards?
Yes. For the 2025 season, end-of-season ranked rewards went to players at Honor 3 or above.
Can you lose Honor 5?
Yes. If you stop the positive behaviour that earned it, for example by no longer communicating with your team, you can drop back to Honor 3.
