18 Best Villager Trades in Minecraft

Apart from being able to mine or craft blocks, Minecraft provides players with a completely unique way of getting items and blocks, which is through villager trading. Every villager job has its own amazing and less valuable trades. However, today, we’ll be taking a look at the best villager trades, not based on their profession but the trades themselves. So, if you are eager to learn about the best trades in Minecraft, let’s waste no more time and jump in.

Table of Contents

Best Villager Trades to Get Items

Nobody can deny that villagers are OP in Minecraft, and that’s exactly why they are needed so much. There’s an extensive list of all possible trades, from virtually useless items to hard-to-get blocks and even armor and tools. Furthermore, don’t forget to zombify and then cure the zombie villagers to get discounts on the expensive prices.

We are separating this article into two sections. The first section will cover villager trades for buying items with emeralds. The second one will introduce the best trades for receiving emeralds by selling items. So, feel free to use the table above to easily move through the article. With that out of the way, let’s start with the best trades right now!

Note: The trades are listed alphabetically, not from the worst to best or vice versa.

1. Bottle o’ Enchanting

• Villager Profession: Master-Level Cleric
• Villager Workstation: Brewing Stand
• Default Price: 1 Bottle o’ Enchanting for 3 Emeralds

Bottles o’ enchanting are undoubtedly one of the best villager trades. They are portable XP. The way you use them to shower yourself with XP orbs is simply like throwing a splash potion in Minecraft. Right-click while holding it and the bottle will get propelled in the direction you’re facing.

The villager selling this item is a master-level cleric and the default price is 3 emeralds for a bottle o’ enchanting. To assign a cleric job to an unemployed villager, use a brewing stand. Even though you have access to sculk blocks and sculk block farms, as an even better portable XP option, bottles o’ enchanting are easier to get and still execute their function just right.

2. Bricks

• Villager Profession: Novice-Level Mason/Stone Mason
• Villager Workstation: Stonecutter
• Default Price: 10 Bricks for 1 Emerald

Bricks are items essential for making brick blocks. You can also get the brick items by smelting clay balls. Clay balls are a drop from clay blocks, that appear in many different bodies of water and, in large quantities, in lush caves.

So, you might be thinking, why is this simple item on our list of villager trades in Minecraft. Well, the answer is that, if you need brick blocks, flower pots, or decorated pots in bulk, acquiring bricks is far easier through trading with villagers.

Yes, you can go into a lush cave and fill a couple of shulker boxes with clay balls just by digging. But, it’s much more efficient if you buy bricks from villagers since you’ll need to smelt all those clay balls after you collect them. The villager that sells brick items is a novice-level mason/ stone mason, and the default price is 10 bricks for 1 emerald.

3. Campfire

• Villager Profession: Apprentice-Level Fisherman
• Villager Workstation: Barrel
• Default Price: 1 Campfire for 2 Emeralds

Campfire is a block that you can buy from an apprentice-level fisherman for two emeralds. You can also craft this item with sticks, coal or charcoal, and logs. This crafting recipe is quite an expensive one, especially if you’re planning on crafting a few stacks of campfires.

This is why being able to buy it from villagers is such an awesome quality-of-life feature. Campfire is one of the light source blocks in Minecraft and also deals damage to anything stepping directly on it.

Not to forget, you can cook various food items on a campfire without the need for fuel. Nowadays, players use extinguished campfires for amazing decorations in their builds. If you want to try out this building tip, simply right-click on a campfire with a shovel to put out the fire.

4. Diamond Gear

Armor

• Villager Profession: Expert & Master-Level Armorer
• Villager Workstation: Blast Furace
• Default Price: 1 Diamond Armor Piece for 13-35 Emeralds

Tools

• Villager Profession: Journeyman, Expert & Master-Level Toolsmith
• Villager Workstation: Smithing Table
• Default Price: 1 Diamond Hoe for 4 Emeralds and the rest of Diamond Tools for 10-32 Emeralds

Weapons

• Villager Profession: Expert & Master-Level Weaponsmith
• Villager Workstation: Grindstone
• Default Price: 1 Diamond Weapon for 13-31 Emeralds

Probably the number one best villager trades are the diamond gear trades. Those include diamond armor, tools, and weapons. The ‘smiths’ villagers are the ones providing these epic trades. Also, not only is it diamond gear that villagers sell, but it’s also enchanted diamond gear.

However, those Minecraft enchantments are usually not very good and players simply remove them from the gear, before enchanting them themselves using enchanted books or the enchanting table.

Nevertheless, they are just the best trades because they make diamond gear completely renewable. Moreover, you can use those hard-earned diamonds for other purposes, like duplicating smithing templates. Although diamond tier gear is not the best in the game, since netherite has been added, it’s still an important part of the progression.

Sometimes, players choose not to upgrade to netherite at all because of the effort required, more so when the Minecraft 1.20 update introduced the netherite upgrade smithing template. So, for some players, diamond gear will always be the way to go.

5. Enchanted Books

• Villager Profession: Librarian of all Levels except the Master
• Villager Workstation: Lectern
• Default Price: 1 Enchanted Book for 5-64 Emeralds

Enchanting is one of the key Minecraft features that changes the gameplay drastically. It makes you stronger. Also, they allow you to have special abilities and help your gear last longer and even never break. Enchantments are an irreplaceable mechanic that can only get better in the future. Librarian villagers provide you with almost all enchanted books in the game, for a high range of prices.

They can even sell you treasure enchantments such as the mending enchantment and frost walker enchantment. If you’re not sure how to use enchanted books in Minecraft, so feel free to follow the linked guide. The complete renewability of these items makes the enchanted book trades one of the best villager trades.

6. Glass

• Villager Profession: Journeyman-Level Librarian
• Villager Workstation: Lectern
• Default Price: 4 Glass Blocks for 1 Emerald

Glass blocks are transparent building blocks that are also dyable in all 16 different dyes in Minecraft. They are used in several important crafting recipes too, such as a Minecraft beacon recipe. Glass can be obtained through smelting sand blocks.

As you might know, desert and beach biomes in Minecraft are filled with sand, so there’s not really a shortage of it. So, why is the glass trade one of the best villager trades if the glass is easy to get?

Well, similarly to the above-mentioned bricks, converting sand to glass is not as efficient as trading with villagers. After you collect lots of sand blocks and lose a ton of durability on your shovel, you’ll need a sufficient fuel source to smelt all of the sand. Besides that, it’s better to use sand for what it’s necessary for, such as creating TNT blocks and concrete powder. Villager selling glass is a librarian of the journeyman level, who you’ll need to provide with a lectern.

7. Golden Carrots

• Villager Profession: Master-Level Farmer
• Villager Workstation: Composter
• Default Price: 3 Golden Carrots for 3 Emeralds

Have you ever felt frustrated when you became hungry shortly after eating something in Minecraft? That’s because there is a behind-the-scenes value called saturation, which determines when you will get hungry after eating. Most easy-to-get food items have low saturation, meaning you will get hungry again quickly.

You probably used one great saturation-wise food item before in the game, such as steak. However, golden carrots are the best stackable saturation-restoring food item in the game. That means you want to use them, especially in the late game.

Besides being one of the best food items, they are also an ingredient in brewing a night vision potion in Minecraft, which comes in handy when exploring and raiding dark structures, such as the ancient city. This trade is one of the best there is and should be taken advantage of. Master-level farmers sell three golden carrots for three emeralds.

8. Name Tag

• Villager Profession: Master-Level Librarian
• Villager Workstation: Lectern
• Default Price: 1 Name Tag for 20 Emeralds

Name tags are items that allow players to name mobs in Minecraft. This way, if it was a hostile mob, it could not despawn anymore. Therefore, the farms that use hostile mobs, such as an iron farm, can function properly without issues.

To use a name tag, you will first need to rename it in a Minecraft anvil and then simply right-click on a mob while holding it. The mob’s name will be displayed above it. If you need help with using a name tag, check out our linked guide.

You can find name tags in loot chests, but it’s not guaranteed. Moreover, if you want to give a new name to every pet you have, having a villager selling name tags is going to be useful. For the third time on our list, librarians take the stage. This trade is only provided by the master-level librarians, tough, so prepare the lectern and start trading.

9. Quartz Blocks

• Villager Profession: Master-Level Mason/Stone Mason
• Villager Workstation: Stonecutter
• Default Price: 1 Quartz Block for 1 Emerald

If you have ever built large builds with quartz blocks, you’ll know what a pain it is to collect them. Block of quartz can be crafted from Nether quartz. However, even with the best enchantments on your pickaxe, you’ll spend a lot of time in the Nether mining this ore.

Apart from the time-consuming aspect, Nether quartz is a crafting ingredient of several relevant redstone components’ recipes, such as observers, redstone comparators, and daylight detectors.

The easiest and most efficient way to get hold of quartz in bulk is through trading with master-level mason villagers. For bigger builds, it’s better to have multiple masons to utilize their cool trades. To convert an unemployed villager into a mason/stone mason, you’ll need a stonecutter. So, because of the time and effort the quartz block trade saves, it’s surely one of the best villager trades.

10. Redstone Dust

• Villager Profession: Novice-Level Cleric
• Villager Workstation: Brewing Stand
• Default Price: 2 Redstone Dust for 1 Emerald

Redstone is one of the main gameplay features in Minecraft. It encourages your creativity, problem-solving, and imagination which leads to amazing, clever, and jaw-dropping contraptions. Redstone dust transmits the signal provided by the redstone power sources to other redstone components, making them functional.

It’s also a crafting ingredient for almost every single one of them. Using redstone, you can construct the best Minecraft farms, like a wool farm, sugar cane farm and so many more.

You can also build epic redstone creations like a redstone door. The fact that we have an unlimited supply of redstone dust at our fingertips without having to go mining, thanks to novice-level clerics, makes this one of the best villager trades in Minecraft. So, don’t hesitate and go find and conquer a Nether fortress to get blaze rods.

11. Saddle

• Villager Profession: Master-Level Leatherworker
• Villager Workstation: Cauldron
• Default Price: 1 Saddle for 6 Emeralds

Saddle is an item that can be placed in a ridable mob’s inventory, or on it to ride it around. Those mobs are horses, skeleton horses, donkeys, mules, camels, pigs, and striders. Saddle isn’t craftable at all, but you can find a saddle in Minecraft, get it when fishing. or buy it from villagers.

Saddle is not an uncommon loot chest item, especially in the Nether fortresses. However, if you can pass all the other, pretty terrible, leatherworker trades, you can get a saddle any time you want with just a few emeralds.

Whether you like this trade depends on your gameplay style. If you like exploring your Minecraft world and fighting mobs, then this may not be such an attractive trade for you. Whereas, if you’re more of a chill player who wants to hang out with pets, villagers, and build cute Minecraft houses, then this is one of the best trades you should check out.

Best Villager Trades to Get Emeralds

Now that we know all the best villager trades you can get, let’s focus on the emeralds. They are the currency villagers accept. You can also find emeralds in Minecraft as ores, which you can then break down and get the items. However, this is a slow and bad way of getting hold of emeralds, as those ores are rare and generated only in the mountain biomes.

As you probably know, villagers don’t only sell you the goods but will buy the goods from you too. This way, you can renewably and quickly get a whole bunch of emeralds. So, in the second part of this article, we’ll cover the best villager trades for getting emeralds. To get the most out of these trades, zombify and cure the zombie villagers.

1. Crops

• Villager Profession: Novice-Level Farmer
• Villager Workstation: Composter
• Default Price for Wheat: 1 Emerald for 20 Wheat
• Default Price for Potatoes: 1 Emerald for 26 Potatoes
• Default Price for Carrots: 1 Emerald for 22 Carrots
• Default Price for Beetroot: 1 Emerald for 15 Beetroot

• Villager Profession: Apprentice-Level Farmer
• Villager Workstation: Composter
• Default Price for Pumpkins: 1 Emerald for 6 Pumpkins

• Villager Profession: Journeyman–Level Farmer
• Villager Workstation: Composter
• Default Price for Melons: 1 Emerald for 4 Melons

Selling different crops to farmer villagers is one of the best ways of farming emeralds. You can start planting seeds on day one of your world. Apart from wheat seeds, you can get from punching grass, other seeds and already grown crops are generated in villages. So, make sure to pick up every type you find. All the crops you can sell include:

• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Wheat
• Beetroot
• Pumpkins
• Melons

With adequate light level and water, all crops will slowly grow, and with fortune enchantment, you can maximize the output of seeds. Moreover, if you want to take these trades to the next level, you can build automated farms for collecting each crop. You can check out our guide on how to make a pumpkin and melon farm, as it’s probably the best to trade these two crops.

2. Glass Panes

• Villager Profession: Apprentice-Level Cartographer
• Villager Workstation: Cartography Table
• Default Price: 1 Emerald for 11 Glass Panes

You might be confused about this trade and why we included it as one of the best villager trades for getting emeralds in Minecraft. But, if you know how to maximize the potential of this trade, then it could be the best. When you zombify and cure the cartographer villager enough, they will bring the glass pane trade to 1 glass pane for 1 emerald.

If you also have a librarian who’ll sell you 4 glass blocks for 1 emerald, you can see how this trade loop is super efficient.

You’ll be able to spend just 2 emeralds for 8 glass blocks, with which you’ll craft 16 glass panes and earn 16 emeralds back. Essentially, you’ll be able to turn 2 emeralds into 16 and make a profit of 14 emeralds. This is a regularly used trade, so start brewing those potions of weakness in Minecraft as you’ll need a few.

3. Gold Ingots

• Villager Profession: Apprentice-Level Cleric
• Villager Workstation: Brewing Stand
• Default Price: 1 Emerald for 3 Gold Ingots

Gold ingots are useful in Minecraft. They are a part of a few different and crucial crafting recipes. Additionally, they allow you to barter with piglins and make some tricky resources renewable and farmable. So, the question is – Why would we sell it to the villagers? It’s just fine to sell any easily farmable item to villagers.

If there is an automated farm design for a certain item, you can infinitely farm it while playing or AFK. Since gold nuggets are easily farmable through a gold farm, there’s no problem in selling the ingots to the clerics, especially if you have so much gold you don’t know what to do with it.

Gold farm is a bit more expensive though, so you probably won’t make it in the early game.

4. Iron Ingots

• Villager Profession: Apprentice-Level Armorer
• Villager Workstation: Blast Furnace
• Default Price: 1 Emerald for 4 Iron Ingots

• Villager Profession: Apprentice-Level Toolsmith
• Villager Workstation: Smithing Table
• Default Price: 1 Emerald for 4 Iron Ingots

• Villager Profession: Apprentice-Level Weaponsmith
• Villager Workstation: Grindstone
• Default Price: 1 Emerald for 4 Iron Ingots

Iron ingots are even more essential in Minecraft than gold ones. They are used in various crafting recipes for items and blocks necessary in both early and late game. Wood and iron are arguably the most important resources in the game.

So, why would we sell such valuable items to the villagers? Similarly to the other farmable items and blocks, once you set up the farm, it’ll run generating, even sometimes, a ton of that certain item. The same goes for the iron, you can make an iron farm in Minecraft and get an abundance of ingots.

You can even build a couple of those farms since they are really not that difficult to build in the early game. You can follow our guide to construct this farm in your world.

An amazing fact about this trade in particular and what makes it one of the best villager trades is that multiple villager professions accept it. All the ‘smith’ villagers that sell diamond gear pieces, will buy iron ingots from players. This way, you can have more purchasing options and still have plenty of easy emerald-generating trades.

5. Sticks

• Villager Profession: Novice-Level Fletcher
• Villager Workstation: Fletching Table
• Default Price: 1 Emerald for 32 Sticks

Stick trade is undoubtedly the most iconic and one of the best villager trades. The easiest and fastest way to get emeralds in the game is by selling sticks to Fletcher villagers. Sticks are easily accessible items crafted from planks or dropped by decaying leaves. If you want to go full in on this trade, you can follow our guide on how to make a tree farm, so you’ll have sticks without having to lift a finger.

This villager trade may even seem too overpowered since you can turn sticks into diamond armor, weapons, and tools. You can also make it even more ridiculous if you zombify and cure the Fletcher several times so the stick trade drops to 1 emerald for 1 stick. Although that would take quite a bit of work, it would eventually be worth it.

6. Stone

• Villager Profession: Apprentice-Level Mason/Stone Mason
• Villager Workstation: Stonecutter
• Default Price: 1 Emerald for 20 Stone

If you have built a slime farm or have a massive underground cave base, you probably have a lot of stone or cobblestone lying around. Selling stone to the mason villagers is one of the best ways you can use it, besides building with it. If you don’t have a lot of stone in your storage or chest monster, fear not.

Because if you combine cobblestone generators with a super smelter, you will have an endless and unlimited supply of stone. You can then always have access to emeralds whenever you wish to buy something.

Since masons are an extremely useful villager profession, it’s always good to have them around. So, this is a great opportunity to earn emeralds and spend them to buy some awesome blocks.

7. Sweet Berries

• Villager Profession: Master-Level Butcher
• Villager Workstation: Smoker
• Default Price: 1 Emerald for 10 Sweet Berries

Sweet berries are food items grown on the sweet berry bushes. You can find them in taiga and snowy taiga biomes. However, be careful when grabbing berries, as the bushes deal a bit of damage upon touching them. The reason why sweet berries are one of the best villager trades is because they are also farmable.

Manual harvesting of this fruit can be a little tedious and that’s why you can have foxes collect them for you. Foxes are immune to the damage the sweet berry bushes deal, so they’ll be completely safe, and you’ll have chests full of sweet berries ready to be sold to your friendly neighborhood butchers.

And just like that, you now know what the best villager trades are in Minecraft. As you might know, villagers have been discussed recently, and it’s determined that their unbalanced mechanics need updating. These changes will affect armorers, cartographers, and librarians the most. Though these villagers won’t necessarily lose the trades mentioned in this guide, they may offer them depending on the biome they’re from.

These features are still only experimental and you can test them out by enabling the “Villager Trade Rebalance” experimental features in Java edition or the “Villager Trade Rebalancing” features in Bedrock edition while creating a new world. As soon as these features are live, we’ll make sure to update this article if needed, so you know what they’re about.