Best Ways to Get XP in Minecraft (2023)

Experience is my bread and butter in Minecraft, letting me upgrade my character's traits and helping me become more efficient in building, crafting, and fighting. Here are the best ways to get XP in Minecraft.

How to farm XP fast in Minecraft

Below are some of the best ways to farm XP in Minecraft. Some of these can be a bit dangerous, so be sure to pick the option that best suits your style of play.

Breed animals

This is probably one of Minecraft's easiest and safest ways to farm up XP. However, you will need to prep by creating some wheat and vegetable farms to have enough food to breed all the necessary animals.

Once you've got your vegetable and wheat farm producing, you'll need to lure over at least two of each of the following animals to your base: cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens. You can use the foods listed below to lure the animals. Craft a bunch of fencing and make a square area for each animal type (with a gate), probably something like 15x15 or larger.

Go around to each of your four different pens and breed the animals. This will start gaining you the XP you are looking for, but it will be a bit slow initially. Once you've done all four, go around and do them again, and repeat this process until you receive a message that the animals can no longer breed. Next, you must go to all the pens and kill the adult animals that can no longer breed, which gives you extra XP!

Now, you'll have to wait a bit for the baby animals to become adults. Once they do, you repeat the process as before. Only this time, there will be more animals, and you should gain even more XP. Keep repeating this until you have all the required experience you need!

Trade with Villagers

Trading with the local Villagers is also one of the safest ways of earning XP in Minecraft. You can construct a Villager trading hall, which will give you access to many useful items and maximize the number of villagers that can be easily reached. Each transaction with a villager will grant you six XP points. Villagers are also the best source of items in the game, so trading with them is always useful.

Related: Top 10 Minecraft Farms to Build

Mine Nether Quartz

Although a dangerous method because you'll have to head into the Nether, if you've got the stomach for it, this is one of the fastest ways to gain XP. Once you enter the Nether, look for blocks like those in the image above. That's Nether Quartz, and mining yields 3.5 XP per block, the greatest amount of XP gain you can get by mining.

There's quite a bit of it to find, so harvest as much as possible and stay safe. Always mark your path when running around in the Nether because it's easy to get lost.

Slay Piglins

This is another Nether farm, but it's a solid way to gain more XP. Find a bunch of piglins that make a home in the Nether. They are passive at first, but if you attack one, they'll all go after you!

Stacking up at least three blocks under you is an easy way to avoid getting killed since they can't reach you that way! Shoot one with your bow to start them attacking you, and then slash away at the piglins until they are all dead. You should bring a lot of extra swords if you don't have a good diamond one.

Make an Enderman farm

You could view this as a glitch, but it's a perfect way to get a ton of experience very quickly. You'll have to build a somewhat complicated contraption to take advantage of it. You'll also need to have been to The End and defeated the Ender Dragon. If you've fulfilled those requirements, you can create a farm.

Fight an ender dragon

The ender dragon is considered to be one of the most dangerous final bosses of Minecraft because it's the most dangerous mob to defeat. If you manage to kill it, you will be rewarded with an incredible 12,000 XP, the biggest sum of points you can get in Minecraft without cheating. You can even re-summon the ender dragon by placing four end crystals on the edges of the exit portal. A re-summoned dragon will yield fewer points, but it will still be worth it.

Monster spawner farm

You can do a monster spawner farm if you still need to get to The End. You will need to locate a monster spawning block, but once you do, you can build around it and make a pretty powerful XP farmer. This takes a fair amount of time to build, but it's worth it if you are going through a ton of experience when enchanting.

Related: How to make a Book in Minecraft

Mine sculk

The deep dark biome hides many perils waiting to be unleashed, but conquering them will yield valuable rewards—plus, if you mine some sculk blocks along the way, you'll level up in no time. Don't forget to find an ancient city and defeat the warden to get even more XP!

Go fishing

Fighting creatures and mining near lava can become tiring, so why not kick it back next to a body of water? Fishing is the easiest and safest method of getting XP, since you'll get points regardless of whether you catch an squid or a bone. Use fishing rod enchantments to get the most out of your fishing sessions!

What Does XP Do in Minecraft?

Experience is primarily used for enchanting, which can be used to add additional properties to your armor, tools, and weaponry. You can also use XP at anvils, which is used to repair and upgrade the previously mentioned items. Enchanting requires the most experience, and it also requires you to be high level to get the best enchantments. If you want to max out all your items, you must farm up some XP.

If you're looking for more Minecraft content, check out How to find an Ancient City in Minecraft and What do horses eat in Minecraft? Answered on Pro Game Guides!