Villager

Villagers are the peaceful residents of Minecraft villages and the backbone of the game’s economy. They farm, sleep, gossip, breed and, most importantly, trade with players for emeralds. A good villager trading hall can give you Mending books, diamond gear, food, and enchanting supplies on demand. This wiki page covers villager stats, every profession and its job site block, how trading and leveling work, how to breed villagers, how to protect them and the best trading tricks in Java and Bedrock Edition.

Villager stats

Villager professions and job site blocks

An unemployed villager takes a profession when it claims a job site block nearby. Each block gives a specific profession:

Nitwits, in green robes, cannot take a profession, and baby villagers must grow up before they can work. A villager who has never traded can lose its profession if you break its job block, letting you reroll its trades. Once you trade with it, the profession and trades are locked.

How villager trading works

1. Right-click a villager with a profession to open its trade menu.
2. Each trade shows what the villager wants and what it gives. Most trades use emeralds as currency.
3. Trading gives the villager experience. When its XP bar fills, it levels up and unlocks new trades: Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert and finally Master.
4. Trades can lock temporarily after many uses. Villagers restock up to twice a day when they work at their job site block.

Getting emeralds

The easiest emerald sources are farmer trades (crops like wheat, carrots, potatoes and pumpkins), fletchers (sticks), clerics (rotten flesh), librarians (paper; see how to make paper) and masons (clay). Farms for these items turn into an endless emerald supply.

Prices and discounts

• Curing: curing a zombie villager gives huge, permanent discounts to the curing player. Use a splash potion of Weakness and a golden apple. See the zombie page.
• Hero of the Village: defeating a raid gives this effect, which lowers prices for a while.
• Demand: prices rise when you trade one item a lot, then fall again over time.
• Reputation: hurting villagers or iron golems makes prices worse; helping the village improves them.

How to breed villagers

Villagers breed on their own when two conditions are met: there are free beds in the village for the baby, and the villagers are willing. They become willing after eating enough food, either collected themselves or thrown to them: 3 bread, or 12 carrots, 12 potatoes or 12 beetroots. Farmer villagers share food with others. When two willing villagers meet, hearts appear and a baby villager spawns if a bed is free. A simple breeder uses a farmer working an enclosed crop farm and a row of beds.

Protecting villagers

• Light the village so zombies do not spawn inside.
• Iron golems: villages spawn iron golems when enough villagers gossip and have slept recently. You can also build them from 4 iron blocks and a carved pumpkin.
• Walls and doors: villagers open wooden doors, but zombies can break them on Hard, so use fences and secure gates.
• Raids: if you enter a village with the Bad Omen effect, a raid starts. Defend the villagers or lose them. Winning gives a totem of undying from evokers and Hero of the Village.
• Lightning: lightning striking near a villager turns it into a witch. Lightning rods help.

Building a trading hall

A trading hall lines up villagers in small cells, each with its job site block and a bed elsewhere, so you can reach every trader in one place. Move villagers with minecarts, boats or water streams, since you cannot use a lead on them. Fill the hall with librarians for enchanted books, plus armorers, toolsmiths and clerics. Cure some of them from zombie villagers to get very cheap prices. Librarians are the stars: by rerolling an unused librarian’s lectern, you can get Mending, Unbreaking III, Efficiency V and other top books for emeralds.

Villager behavior

• Villagers follow a daily schedule: work, wander, gather at the meeting point bell, and sleep at night.
• They gossip, sharing your reputation with each other.
• They run from zombies, illagers and vexes.
• Farmers harvest and replant crops and compost extra seeds.
• Villagers in different biomes have different outfits.

Villager FAQ

How do you breed villagers?

Give them free beds and food: 3 bread or 12 carrots, potatoes or beetroots.

How do you change a villager’s job?

Break its job block before you trade with it, then place a different one.

Which villager sells Mending?

Librarians, using a lectern.

How do you get cheaper trades?

Cure zombie villagers and win raids for Hero of the Village.

Can you put a villager on a lead?

No. Use a boat or minecart to move villagers.

Best villager trades to look for

• Librarian: Mending, Unbreaking III, Efficiency V, Protection IV, Sharpness V and Feather Falling IV books. A librarian also sells name tags at higher levels and bookshelves early on.
• Armorer and toolsmith: enchanted diamond armor and tools at Expert and Master levels, a fast way to gear up without mining.
• Farmer: golden carrots, one of the best foods in the game, for emeralds.
• Cleric: ender pearls, redstone, lapis lazuli and bottles of enchanting, which give experience.
• Cartographer: ocean explorer maps that point to ocean monuments, and woodland explorer maps for mansions, plus trial explorer maps in newer versions.
• Fletcher: buys sticks for emeralds, one of the cheapest emerald trades in the game.
• Mason: polished blocks and quartz for builders, and buys clay.

Villager reputation and gossip

Villagers remember how players treat them. Trading with them, curing them and defending the village improve your reputation, while hitting villagers or killing iron golems makes it worse and can turn iron golems hostile to you. Reputation spreads through gossip when villagers meet, so a bad act can affect prices across the whole village. Good reputation gives lower prices with every villager, which is another reason to protect your village during raids.

Moving villagers

Since villagers cannot be leashed, players move them with boats, minecarts on rails, water streams or by curing zombie villagers at the destination. A boat works on land too: push it with the villager inside. Nether portals help for long distances, because a boat or minecart can carry a villager through.

Villager variants by biome

Villagers wear different outfits depending on the biome their village spawned in: plains, desert, savanna, taiga, snowy, jungle and swamp villagers all look different, and the professions add hats and aprons on top. The look is cosmetic, but it helps you recognize where a villager came from. Biome also affects some trades in newer versions, such as which enchanted books a librarian can offer when the villager trade rebalance is active.

Name tags keep important villagers safe from despawning issues and make a trading hall easier to navigate.