Guides / Enchanting Strategy / How to Make an Anvil in Minecraft: Recipe and Iron Cost
How to Make an Anvil in Minecraft: Recipe and Iron Cost
Published October 23, 2026
To make an anvil in Minecraft, craft 3 blocks of iron and 4 iron ingots at a crafting table: the three blocks go in the top row, one ingot in the middle of the second row and three ingots in the bottom row. That is the whole anvil recipe, and it costs 31 iron ingots in total, because each block of iron is 9 ingots. This guide shows the crafting grid, the cheapest way to collect that much iron, what an anvil is for once you have one, and what happens when it wears out (checked against the Minecraft Wiki on 2026-10-23).
How to craft an anvil
Open a crafting table and fill the 3 × 3 grid like this (the 2 × 2 grid in your inventory is too small for this recipe):
| Row | Left slot | Centre slot | Right slot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | Block of iron | Block of iron | Block of iron |
| Middle | empty | Iron ingot | empty |
| Bottom | Iron ingot | Iron ingot | Iron ingot |
The pattern is the same shape from left to right, so it does not matter which way round you read it. The result is one anvil, an undamaged one.
How much iron does an anvil need?
| Part | Amount | Iron ingots |
|---|---|---|
| Blocks of iron (3 × 9 ingots each) | 3 | 27 |
| Iron ingots | 4 | 4 |
| Total | 31 |
The Minecraft Wiki's Anvil page gives the same total: 31 iron ingots, including 27 for the three blocks of iron. A block of iron is nine iron ingots crafted in a 3 × 3 square, and one block can be turned back into 9 ingots, so it makes no difference whether you carry your iron as ingots or as blocks. You only need to craft the 3 blocks before you make the anvil.
Is the anvil recipe different on Bedrock?
No. The Minecraft Wiki lists a single anvil recipe, with no Java Edition or Bedrock Edition difference: 3 blocks of iron, 4 iron ingots, the same pattern. The cost of what you do at the anvil does differ between the editions, see Java vs Bedrock Anvil Cost.
How to get 31 iron ingots
- Mine iron ore. Iron ore needs a stone pickaxe or better. Mined without Silk Touch it drops one raw iron, and Fortune I, II and III raise that to 1-2, 1-3 and 1-4 raw iron. Where to dig matters more than anything else: iron has a deep band peaking around Y=16 and a larger mountain band peaking around Y=232, see the Y-level mining guide.
- Smelt it. Raw iron (and iron ore) smelts into iron ingots in a furnace or a blast furnace. A blast furnace smelts metals twice as fast, and it burns fuel twice as fast, so the number of items per piece of fuel stays the same.
- Kill iron golems. An iron golem drops 3-5 iron ingots when it dies. The Minecraft Wiki has a separate tutorial for iron golem farms if you want a steady supply.
- Craft blocks once you have 27 ingots. Put 9 ingots in the crafting grid for each block of iron, three times.
The anvil needs nothing rare: it is renewable according to the Minecraft Wiki, and you can always make another one.
What does an anvil do?
An anvil renames items, repairs items and combines enchantments, all through one screen, and every operation costs XP levels. The full walkthrough, with the left and right slots explained, is in How to Use an Anvil. The short version:
- Combine a tool, weapon or armor piece with an enchanted book or with a second copy of the same item, and keep the enchantments.
- Repair an item with its own material (iron ingots for iron gear, diamonds for diamond gear) or with a second damaged copy.
- Rename any item.
Each time an item goes through the anvil its cost rises (the "prior work" penalty), and an operation of 40 levels or more is refused: the anvil has a limit of 39 levels. If you hit it, read Why Does My Anvil Say Too Expensive.
How an anvil gets damaged and breaks
Every time you repair, enchant or rename something with an anvil, the anvil has a 12% chance to degrade by one stage: an undamaged anvil becomes a chipped anvil, then a damaged anvil, and the next degrade destroys it, with nothing dropped. The Minecraft Wiki's average is 25 uses before it breaks, but it can be much fewer or more. An anvil that falls more than one block also has a 5% chance per block fallen to degrade a stage. The damage state does not change how the anvil works, and in Creative mode anvils are not damaged on use. The details, and what it means for planning, are in Do Anvils Break in Minecraft.
Can you repair an anvil?
Not as far as the Minecraft Wiki says. Its Anvil page lists no recipe or action that repairs a chipped or damaged anvil, only the three stages and the destroyed state. A common idea is to repair it with iron blocks, but we found nothing on the wiki that supports it, so we do not recommend it. When an anvil is destroyed the replacement is a new anvil, made with the same recipe (31 more iron ingots). If you want to keep one anvil alive longer, use it for fewer, bigger operations, which is exactly what a good plan does. To pick an anvil up and move it, mine it with a pickaxe: without one it drops nothing.
What to do next
Once the anvil is on the ground, the expensive part is deciding in which order to combine your books and items. The calculator finds the cheapest order and shows every step's cost, so you spend the fewest levels (and the fewest anvil uses). Here is a standard pickaxe build to start from.
Plan a diamond pickaxe in the calculator →
For the rules behind the costs, see Enchanting Strategy.
Once you have enchanted items, the other utility block to know is the grindstone: it removes enchantments for XP, repairs by combining and resets prior work. See Grindstone in Minecraft: Recipe, Uses & How Much XP It Gives.
Frequently asked questions
How do you make an anvil in Minecraft?
Craft it at a crafting table with 3 blocks of iron in the top row, 1 iron ingot in the centre of the middle row and 3 iron ingots in the bottom row. The result is one anvil.
How much iron does an anvil need?
31 iron ingots in total: 27 for the 3 blocks of iron (9 ingots each) plus 4 loose iron ingots.
Can you repair an anvil?
The Minecraft Wiki lists no way to repair an anvil. It goes from undamaged to chipped to damaged and is then destroyed, dropping nothing, so you craft a new one with the same recipe. The damage state does not change how it works.
Is the anvil recipe different on Bedrock?
No. The Minecraft Wiki lists one recipe for both editions: 3 blocks of iron and 4 iron ingots in the same pattern. Only the cost of using the anvil differs between Java Edition and Bedrock Edition.
What can you do with an anvil?
Combine enchantments from two items or an item and an enchanted book, repair an item with its material or a second copy, and rename items. Each operation costs XP levels, and an operation of 40 levels or more is refused.
How many times can you use an anvil before it breaks?
Each use has a 12% chance to degrade the anvil by one stage (chipped, then damaged, then destroyed). The Minecraft Wiki gives an average of about 25 uses, but it can break much earlier or later.