Villager: the complete guide to trading and villages

Stats

Villagers are passive: they never attack the player or other mobs. They have no weapons and run away from hostile mobs like zombies. Still, they're very important for your progress in the game, because they're the only steady source of many enchanted items and rare materials. If you're just starting out in Minecraft, check out our first steps guide.

Villager professions

A villager gets a profession when it claims a job site block (also called a workstation). Each profession has its own trades and outfit. Here are the 13 trading professions, plus the nitwit and the unemployed villager:

The most valuable professions are the librarian (access to almost every enchantment), the armorer (diamond armor), the weaponsmith (diamond swords) and the farmer (easy emeralds). Build a trading hall with all 13 professions and you'll have access to the full range of trades. You'll find the complete trade tables for every profession on our villager professions page.

Trade levels

Every villager with a profession has 5 trade levels. Higher levels unlock better trades:

A villager levels up once you've traded with it enough. Every trade gives it trading experience. When it has collected the required amount, the villager moves up to the next level (you'll see green particles) and unlocks new trades. The most valuable items, such as enchanted diamond armor and weapons, only become available at the Expert and Master levels.

Trade table: the most important trades

Here are the most valuable trades in the game, sorted by usefulness. Prices are for Java Edition 26.3. The full list of available enchantments will help you judge what the librarian's offers are worth.

Librarian: the most important villager

The librarian is the most important villager in the game, because it can sell almost any enchantment as an enchanted book, including Mending, Sharpness V, Protection IV, Infinity, Silk Touch and many more. The only exceptions are Soul Speed, Swift Sneak and Wind Burst. At each level a librarian rolls 2 trades from a pool, so not every level will get an enchanted book, and books with treasure enchantments like Mending cost twice as much. Librarians no longer sell name tags: since version 26.1 you can make a name tag yourself or buy one from a wandering trader. You'll find the full list of enchantments on our enchantments wiki. Read more about how enchanting tools works in the enchanting guide.

If you don't like a trade, break the lectern: the villager loses its profession, and once you place the lectern again, it rolls new trades. This only works until the first trade, so don't trade with the villager until the enchantment you want shows up.

Farmer

At Novice level a farmer rolls 2 of 5 trades, so not every farmer buys wheat.

Weaponsmith

Armorer

Cleric: rare materials

The cleric sells rare items, including ender pearls (Expert level, 5 emeralds each; you need them to reach the Ender Dragon), bottles o' enchanting (Master, 3 emeralds) and glowstone blocks (Journeyman, 4 emeralds), which give you glowstone dust for brewing potions. Already at Novice level it buys 32 rotten flesh for an emerald, which makes it the perfect buyer for the drops from your zombie farms.

Job site blocks

A villager gets a profession when it finds a free job site block. You can craft job site blocks from simple materials. The key rules:

• An unemployed villager walks up to a free job site block and takes the matching profession. It has to be within range of the block and have a path to it.
• Changing a profession: Break the job site block of a villager nobody has traded with yet: it loses its profession and becomes unemployed. Place a different job site block and it takes the new profession. This only works before the first trade.
• A nitwit never gets a profession: it's the only adult villager that will never trade. You can recognize it by its green outfit.
• A villager you've traded with keeps its profession for good: it won't lose it even if you break its job site block.

Village mechanics

Villages in Minecraft run on a fairly complex system. Once you understand it, you'll trade more efficiently and do a better job of protecting your villagers from hostile mobs like zombies and pillagers:

What makes a village

• Beds: A village exists wherever there are beds and villagers. At least 1 bed + 1 villager = a village.
• Meeting point: A bell, or the middle of a cluster of beds, becomes the village "center".
• Iron golems: They spawn naturally when a village has at least 3 villagers and 3 beds. They protect villagers from hostile mobs.

A villager's daily schedule

1. Morning (2,000 ticks after sunrise): Villagers wake up and head to their job sites.
2. Work: Villagers work at their job sites, restocking their trades (twice a day). This is the key moment: trades only restock when the villager reaches its job site!
3. Meeting: In the middle of the day they gather at the bell and share food.
4. Evening: They go back to their beds and go to sleep. At night they're especially vulnerable to zombie attacks.

Biomes and villager appearance

Villagers look different depending on the biome they were born in. In Java Edition, villages generate in plains, meadows, deserts, savannas, taigas and snowy plains. The outfit is cosmetic, but in Java Edition 26.3 the biome also changes some of the trades: the cartographer's maps and banner colors, and the type of boat the fisherman buys.

Villager breeding

Villagers breed when two conditions are met:

1. Free beds: The village needs more beds than villagers. Every new villager needs its own bed.
2. Food: Villagers need food in their inventory. Throw each of them 3 bread, 12 carrots, 12 potatoes or 12 beetroots.

When both conditions are met, two villagers "fall in love" (hearts appear), and a baby shows up shortly afterwards. After 20 minutes it grows up and can get a profession. Breeding lets you build your own trading hall with lots of villagers in different professions.

Reputation and prices

Villager prices depend on several factors:

• Supply and demand: If you buy the same item over and over, its price goes up. If you stop buying it, the price comes back down after a while.
• Hero of the Village effect: After you win a raid (by defending a village), you get 30-55% off all trades. It's one of the best ways to trade cheaply.
• Curing a zombie villager: A villager you cure from its zombie form gives you permanently lower prices (often down to 1 emerald). There's more on this technique in the section below.
• Reputation: Attacking villagers raises prices. Trading lowers them.

Zombie villagers: the key to low prices

The best way to lower prices is to deliberately infect villagers with zombies and then cure them. You'll need potions for this:

1. Let a zombie kill a villager that already has a profession: only a villager like that gives you a discount once it's cured (on Hard there's a 100% chance it turns into a zombie villager, on Normal 50%).
2. Throw a splash potion of Weakness at the zombie villager.
3. Right-click the zombie villager with a golden apple.
4. Wait 3-5 minutes: the zombie villager shakes and changes color.
5. Once it's cured, the villager gives you huge discounts, often 1 emerald for items that normally cost 20+ emeralds.

Don't repeat the process on the same villager: in Java Edition, since version 1.20.2, further cures don't give any extra discount. This technique requires brewing potions, so get the hang of brewing before you start.

Emerald farms

Emeralds are the villagers' currency. You can automate the most efficient ways of getting them with our farm guide:

Wheat farm + farmer

Build a big wheat farm and sell your wheat to a farmer at 20 wheat for 1 emerald. An automatic wheat farm can produce hundreds of wheat per hour. It's one of the simplest farms in the game, perfect for beginners.

Paper farm + librarian

Turn sugar cane into paper and sell it to a librarian (24 paper = 1 emerald). A sugar cane farm is easy to automate with observers and pistons. You'll find the building details in our farm guide.

Pumpkin farm + farmer

An automatic pumpkin farm is one of the easiest sources of emeralds. 6 pumpkins = 1 emerald from an Apprentice-level farmer. Pistons and observers are all you need to automate it.

Stick farm + fletcher

A fletcher buys 32 sticks for 1 emerald. You can make huge amounts of sticks from bamboo or regular wood. Bamboo grows very fast, so this farm is one of the most efficient.

Tips and tricks

• Trading hall: Build a closed building with lots of job site blocks and villagers. It speeds up trading and protects villagers from zombies and pillagers. Every villager should be able to reach its job site and a bed.
• Getting Mending: Mending is the most valuable enchantment. Use the librarian reset method (break and replace the lectern) until Mending shows up at Novice level. You can read more about why Mending is so valuable in the enchanting guide.
• Protecting villages: Put lanterns and fences around the village. Zombies, pillagers and vexes can kill villagers, which wrecks your trading setup. Nether portals close to a village can make zombified piglins spawn.
• Locking villagers in cells: Putting villagers in 1-block "cells" with access to a job site block stops them from wandering off and makes it harder for zombies to attack them. It looks brutal, but it works: it's a standard technique in advanced play.
• Wandering trader: A separate mob that shows up at random with two llamas; there's more about it on the wandering trader page. It has unique trades (rare plants, dyes and, since version 26.1, sometimes a name tag for 1 emerald, up to 5 of them), but you can't level it up, and you can only use each trade a few times (1 to 12, depending on the trade). You can tame its llamas and use them as pack animals.
• Don't kill villagers: Killing a villager raises prices with every villager in the village, and iron golems turn aggressive. It's the worst thing you can do to your economy.
• Sorting with allays: If you have allays, you can use them to sort the drops from the farms near your village automatically. An allay picks up specific items and delivers them to note blocks set up with hoppers.

Related pages

Learn more about trading and villages:

• Mob encyclopedia - every mob in Minecraft
• Villager professions - complete trade tables for Java Edition 26.3
• Best villager trades - a trading tier list
• Zombie - infecting villagers, and zombie villagers
• Allay - the flying helper that sorts items
• Piglin - bartering in the Nether
• Enchantments wiki - a list of every enchantment
• Enchanting guide - how to enchant your tools
• Crafting guide - recipes for job site blocks
• Farm guide - automating emerald production
• Potions wiki - brewing a splash potion of Weakness
• First steps - the basics for beginners