Guides / Survival Guides / XP Farm Minecraft: Best XP Farms for Java & Bedrock
XP Farm Minecraft: Best XP Farms for Java & Bedrock
Published October 24, 2026
The best XP farm in Minecraft depends on how far into the game you are. Early on, an XP farm is a furnace full of raw food, a fishing spot or a few penned animals. In the middle game it is villager trading, a monster spawner or a simple dark-room mob farm. Late in the game it is a blaze, guardian, enderman or zombified piglin farm. This guide compares the XP farms the Minecraft Wiki describes by stage, with what each one needs, how it works, its risks and where Java Edition and Bedrock Edition differ, then ties it back to the thing most players need levels for: the anvil. For the XP-per-level table and every orb value, see XP Levels in Minecraft.
We only print numbers that the wiki gives exactly. The wiki's farming tutorials quote XP-per-hour rates, but those pages are marked work in progress and depend on the design, so there are no per-hour rates here, only comparisons of effort, resources, dimension and risk.
How a Minecraft XP farm works
Every XP farm does the same thing: it gets experience orbs to appear and lets you collect them. Four facts from the wiki decide what works:
- Mobs only drop XP when a player or a tamed wolf kills them, or when they die shortly after a player hit them. A grinder that kills mobs by falling, lava or suffocation alone gives loot but no XP, which is why XP farms soften mobs and leave the last hit to you (or to wolves).
- Orbs are collected gradually, one at a time at 10 orbs per second, however many are around you. Larger orbs are worth more, so mobs that drop big orbs fill the bar faster.
- Mending repairs first. If you wear or hold a damaged Mending item, orbs repair it before they fill your bar. Take mended items off when you want to bank levels.
- Furnaces store XP. A furnace keeps the XP of every item it finishes and pays it out when you take an item out by hand or break the furnace, so a hopper-fed smelter saves its XP until you collect it.
Early game: easy XP farms
You need no Nether trip and no redstone for these. They are slow compared with a mob farm, but cheap and safe.
| Farm | What you need | What it gives | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ore mining | A pickaxe and caves | 0 to 7 per ore (diamond and emerald give the most) | Starting levels while you mine anyway |
| Smelting | A furnace, fuel, raw food or ore | 22.4 per 64 raw meat, potatoes or fish; 6.4 per 64 cobblestone or kelp | A stack of XP you collect later |
| Breeding | Two animals and their food | 1 to 7 per pairing | A small top-up, plus food and leather |
| Fishing | A fishing rod and a safe pond | 1 to 6 per catch | Near-free XP and enchanted books |
Smelting is the farm to automate first. Feed a furnace with the harvest of a crop farm (potatoes, kelp, or chickens you breed and cook) and collect the stored XP whenever you need it. Cactus is a special case: the wiki lists 1 XP per cactus on Java Edition (linking a Java bug report, MC-210211) and 0.2 on Bedrock Edition. Fuel decides how much a furnace can do on its own, since the XP is only earned as items finish.
Fishing gives XP for every catch, even if you do not pick the item up, and it can also catch enchanted books and rods. The wiki's tutorial suggests a pond at least two blocks deep, a lit shelter with a roof against phantoms, and a Mending rod that repairs itself from its own catches (Fishing for Enchanted Books covers the odds).
Mid game: trading, spawners and mob farms
Once you have emeralds, a rod or iron gear, these give you more to work with.
| Farm | What you need | What it gives | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Villager trading | Villagers and something to sell | 3 to 6 per trade, plus 5 more when the trade levels the villager up | Safe XP and enchanted books |
| Bottles o' Enchanting | A Master cleric and 3 emeralds per bottle | 3 to 11 per bottle (average 7), plus the trade's own XP | Portable XP you carry to the anvil |
| Monster spawner | A spawner, light control, a kill zone | 15 to 43 for breaking it, plus each mob's normal XP | One mob type, close to your base |
| Mob farm (dark room) | A large dark spawning area, a killing system | 5 per hostile mob, plus 1 to 3 per piece of equipment it spawned with | Loot and XP together |
Villager trading is not a permanent XP source, but it is steady and safe, and the wiki notes that each trade gives more XP than a Bottle o' Enchanting stores. A Master-level cleric sells a bottle for 3 emeralds, so a stack of 64 bottles averages about 448 points.
Monster spawner farms are built around a spawner you find in a dungeon, mineshaft or Nether fortress. The spawner works while you are within 16 blocks and tries to spawn mobs in a 9 by 3 by 9 area, four at a time, then waits between about 10 and 40 seconds. You enclose that area, funnel the mobs into a kill zone and make the last hit yourself. The wiki's tutorial points out that a skeleton spawner can run unattended because tamed wolves attack skeletons, and a wolf kill still drops XP, but skeletons can hurt the wolves, so you must keep feeding them.
Dark-room mob farms use the spawning rules: on the Overworld surface and in caves, hostile mobs spawn where the sky light is 7 or less and the block light is 0. A farm is a large, dark spawning area with a way to move the mobs to one place. The wiki says mob farms are not usually a great source of XP, though they usually match or beat spawner traps and give a wide variety of loot. Where you build matters: a farm on the surface works well during the day but loses output at night, an underground farm competes with unlit caves, and a farm high in the sky or over an ocean has fewer rival spawn spots (and a risky build). On Java Edition mobs spawn within 128 blocks of you; on Bedrock Edition the spawn range depends on the simulation distance (24 to 44 blocks at simulation distance 4, 24 to 128 blocks in a shell limited to about 96 blocks horizontally at 6 and above), and Bedrock has additional population and density caps.
Blaze and guardian farms use mobs that drop more XP than most.
- Blaze farm. A blaze is worth 10 XP, twice the usual 5, with only 20 health (the same as a zombie). The easiest design is built around a blaze spawner in a Nether fortress, and the wiki also describes open-fortress designs, which it calls the hardest because other Nether mobs spawn there too. Flowing lava pushes blazes toward a kill point (Java Edition 1.16 and later for fire-resistant mobs, and the wiki notes it was tested on Bedrock 1.19). Blaze rods are also a good fuel for smelters.
- Guardian farm. A guardian is also worth 10 XP. Guardians only spawn inside ocean monuments, which only generate in deep ocean, so you need a monument. The wiki says many designs do not need the monument drained, though its guardian tutorial predates that and is marked out of date. You also get prismarine and fish.
Late game: enderman, piglin and dragon
These are the farms experienced players build. They need the Nether or the End and carry the biggest risks.
| Farm | Where | What it gives per mob | Main risk or cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enderman farm | The End (or a warped forest) | 5 | Falling into the void; building far from the main island |
| Zombified piglin (gold) farm | The Nether | 5 (12 for a baby), plus 1 to 3 per equipment piece it did not drop | A large, redstone-heavy build; Java and Bedrock use different designs |
| Wither skeleton farm | A Nether fortress | 5, plus 1 to 3 per equipment piece it did not drop (6 to 8 with its stone sword) | Needs a fortress, a big build, and the wiki's tutorial is incomplete |
| Ender Dragon | The End | 12,000 the first time, 500 each time after | One-off; respawning it takes four end crystals |
Enderman farms. An enderman drops 5 XP. Endermen spawn at a considerably higher rate in the End and in warped forests than in the Overworld. The wiki describes pit and piston traps, falling endermen until they have half a heart left so you can finish them with one hit, and a trap that lures them with a name-tagged endermite. The wiki warns that the strongest designs are built in the End and risk falling into the void, losing your items.
Zombified piglin (gold) farms. They spawn in the Nether wastes and crimson forests and in fortresses, and they can spawn on magma blocks and inside Nether portals because they are fire-immune. On Java Edition most designs use a platform of magma blocks; on Bedrock Edition most designs use a Nether portal that is repeatedly broken and re-lit, because the wiki says rapid portal toggling spawns piglins much faster there. Bedrock also has a quirk: 0.75% of zombified piglins drop no XP. They drop gold as well, so these farms double as gold farms.
Wither skeleton farms work like piglin farms inside a Nether fortress: you remove other spawn spots, keep a platform, and move the skeletons to a kill point. They also give coal, bones and a small chance of skulls. The wiki's tutorial for this farm has gaps, so we describe it only briefly.
The Ender Dragon. The first kill drops 12,000 points, enough to take you from zero to level 68. The dragon can be respawned with four end crystals, but each later kill gives only 500, so repeating it is not an XP farm. Some of the first orbs can fall into the exit portal, so go to the world origin to collect them.
XP farms on Bedrock Edition
The same farm types work on both editions, but the wiki lists these differences:
- Cactus smelts for 0.2 XP on Bedrock Edition and 1 XP on Java Edition.
- Zombified piglin farms use a Nether portal that is quickly turned off and on (Java farms mostly use magma blocks).
- Mob farms are limited by population and density caps and by a smaller effective spawn range, so a farm far from where you stand can underperform.
- Bedrock Edition can drop XP from mobs killed by tridents on pistons, though the wiki calls this generally inefficient.
- A blaze farm using flowing lava was tested on Bedrock 1.19.
Which XP farm should you build?
| If you want | Start with |
|---|---|
| Levels in your first hours | Mine ore, smelt stacks of raw food, breed animals |
| Safe, steady XP and enchanted books | Fishing and villager trading |
| Loot and XP together | A dark-room mob farm or a spawner farm |
| The most XP from one mob type | A blaze or guardian farm |
| A big one-off boost | The first Ender Dragon kill (12,000 points) |
| XP you can carry | Bottles o' Enchanting (about 448 points per 64) |
Whatever you build, the XP still has to be collected, and you absorb orbs at 10 per second.
How many levels does your anvil plan need?
An XP farm only matters if you know what you are filling the bar for. These are the numbers from XP Levels in Minecraft:
- Level 30 (1,395 points from zero) is the highest level an enchanting table asks for, and refilling after a level 30 enchant takes 306 points.
- Level 39 (2,727 points) is the largest bill the anvil accepts in Survival; a single operation above 39 levels is refused (Why Does My Anvil Say Too Expensive).
- A diamond pickaxe with Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, Fortune III and Mending costs 23 levels in four anvil steps (Java Edition 1.21.11, Min XP). Paid from level 23 that is 751 points, and paid from level 30 it is 1,304 points.
See this pickaxe plan in the calculator →
To put 751 points in perspective with the exact figures above: it is about 34 stacks of raw meat or potatoes smelted (22.4 points each), or a little under two stacks of Bottles o' Enchanting (about 448 each on average). A plan with fewer levels needs less XP from any farm, so see Minimum Prior Work, How to Use an Anvil and Cheapest Enchanted Books, and open the calculator for your own build.
What we left out
We do not print XP-per-hour rates for any farm, because the wiki's experience-farming and farm tutorials are marked work in progress or out of date and the numbers depend on the design. We also leave out build plans for specific designs, sculk farms, silverfish and slime duplication, and drowned farms, which we could not verify well enough. The wiki's Smelting page does not list a Bedrock exception for hoppers and furnaces, so the furnace rule above is given without an edition label.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best XP farm in Minecraft?
It depends on your stage. Early on, mining ore, smelting raw food, breeding and fishing need no special gear. In the middle game, villager trading, a monster spawner or a dark-room mob farm work. Late in the game, blaze, guardian, enderman and zombified piglin farms drop more XP per mob. The wiki lists guardians and blazes at 10 XP per kill, against 5 for most hostile mobs.
What is the easiest XP farm to make?
Smelting is the easiest: feed a furnace with raw meat, potatoes, fish or ore and the furnace stores the XP until you take an item out or break it. A stack of 64 raw meat, potatoes or fish gives 22.4 points. Fishing and breeding also need almost nothing to start.
How do I make an XP farm in Minecraft?
Most XP farms have three parts: a place where mobs spawn (a dark room, a spawner, a fortress or the End), a way to move them to one spot, and a way to weaken them so that you land the last hit yourself. The XP only drops when a player or a tamed wolf kills the mob.
Is there a good XP farm for Bedrock Edition?
Yes. The same farm types work on Bedrock Edition. The differences the wiki lists are that cactus gives 0.2 XP per smelt instead of 1, zombified piglin farms use a quickly toggled Nether portal instead of magma blocks, and Bedrock has population and density caps with a smaller effective spawn range.
What is the fastest way to get XP in Minecraft?
For a one-off boost, the first Ender Dragon kill drops 12,000 points, which takes you from zero to level 68. For a repeatable source, the wiki points to guardian and enderman farms. We do not quote per-hour rates because the wiki's farming tutorials are marked work in progress.
Why does my mob farm give no XP?
Because mobs only drop XP when a player or a tamed wolf kills them, or when they die shortly after a player hit them. If a grinder kills them by falling, lava or suffocation alone, you get loot but no experience. Soften the mobs and finish them yourself.
How much XP do I need for an anvil?
A pickaxe with Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, Fortune III and Mending costs 23 levels in four steps, which is 751 points if you pay from level 23 and 1,304 points from level 30. The anvil refuses any single operation above 39 levels, and reaching level 39 from zero takes 2,727 points.