How to Get XP Fast in Minecraft
For XP fast, farm mobs you hit yourself before they die: a dungeon spawner early, an enderman farm in the End. Mining, smelting and trading fill the gaps.
Mob farms win on rate, and rate matters because levels get dearer: from level 16 to 30 each one costs 5 × level − 38 points. You want a source that pays 5 or 10 points a time, over and over, not one that trickles in fractions.
How much XP you need
| Level | Total XP from zero | Cost of the next level |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 55 | 17 |
| 15 | 315 | 37 |
| 20 | 550 | 62 |
| 30 | 1,395 | 112 |
| 50 | 5,345 | 292 |
You rarely start from zero. The best enchanting table offer takes 3 levels, so climbing from 27 back to 30 costs 306 points. That is 62 zombies with no gear, or 31 blazes. The XP calculator gives the total and the next-level cost for any level.
XP sources compared
Mobs, animals and other actions
| Source | XP each time |
|---|---|
| Creeper, Spider, Enderman | 5 |
| Zombie, Skeleton | 5, plus 1–3 per piece of gear it spawned with (a Skeleton always has its Bow) |
| Adult Zombified Piglin | 6–8: 5, plus 1–3 for the golden weapon it spawns holding |
| Blaze, Guardian | 10 |
| Adult cow, pig, sheep or chicken | 1–3 |
| Breeding two animals | 1–7 |
| Fishing catch | 1–6 |
| Villager trade | 3–6, plus 5 when the villager levels up |
| Bottle o' Enchanting | 3–11 |
| Wither | 50 |
| Ender Dragon | 12,000 on the first kill, 500 after that |
The gear bonus only counts for pieces the mob still has when it dies. If it drops its weapon, you get the base 5. A baby zombie pays 12 before gear. The first Ender Dragon kill is a one-off, but it is enough on its own to take you from zero to level 68.
Blocks and furnaces
| Source | XP each |
|---|---|
| Nether Gold Ore | 0–1 |
| Coal Ore | 0–2 |
| Redstone Ore | 1–5 |
| Lapis Lazuli Ore, Nether Quartz Ore | 2–5 |
| Diamond Ore, Emerald Ore | 3–7 |
| Monster Spawner, broken with a pickaxe | 15–43 |
| Smelting Kelp | 0.1 |
| Smelting logs into Charcoal | 0.15 |
| Smelting Raw Iron or Raw Copper | 0.7 |
| Smelting Raw Gold or Cactus | 1 |
| Smelting Ancient Debris | 2 |
Furnaces handle fractions fairly. The game multiplies the value by the number of items smelted since the furnace last paid out, pays the whole part, and treats the remainder as a chance of one more point. A stack of 64 Raw Iron pays 44 or 45 points. A stack of Cactus pays exactly 64. A stack of Kelp pays just 6 or 7.
Which source to use when
Before your first farm: mine and smelt
XP from ore comes free with mining you are doing anyway. Break every Nether Quartz Ore you pass on a Nether trip, since it pays as well as Lapis Lazuli Ore. Smelt your raw metals rather than storing them, because the furnace adds XP of its own.
Early game: a spawner or a dark-room farm
The first real jump comes from hostile mobs. A zombie or skeleton dungeon spawner is the cheapest farm to set up, and the spawner XP farm guide walks through the build. With no spawner nearby, a mob grinder gives mobs a dark platform to spawn on instead. The Mob Grinder Tower is one ready-made design: its 19.5-block drop leaves a zombie or skeleton on two hearts, ready for one swing of a stone sword or better. A wooden or golden sword's 4 damage falls just short against a zombie, whose 2 armour points trim the hit to 3.9.
Both designs depend on one rule. A mob only drops XP if it dies within 5 seconds (100 game ticks) of a hit from you or your tamed wolf. Fall damage, lava or cramming on their own give you nothing, so farms bring mobs down to low health and leave the killing blow to you.
Mid game: villagers and a furnace
Every trade pays XP, and each level-up adds a bonus, so levelling a new villager to Master pays on top of the goods you wanted anyway. A Master Cleric always offers Bottles o' Enchanting at 3 emeralds each, up to 12 before it needs to restock. That is poor value per point, but you can throw the bottles anywhere, which makes them a handy top-up for Mending gear away from base.
Cactus is the best cheap furnace input: 1 point per block, and a cactus farm grows it while you are nearby. One Coal smelts 8 Cactus, so every Coal you burn turns into 8 points.
Endgame: the big farms
Once the dragon is dead, build an enderman farm over the End void; the enderman farm guide covers the endermite lure and the kill chamber. Endermen pay the same 5 points as a zombie, so the gain comes from how many the farm brings in. Guardians and blazes pay double that per kill: build a guardian farm at an ocean monument, or a blaze farm on a Nether fortress spawner. A Nether gold farm pays 6–8 per adult Zombified Piglin, with gold on the side.
Where XP gets lost
- Silk Touch on ore. You get the block and no XP. Smelting a Diamond Ore block later pays 1 point, against 3–7 for mining it.
- Holding or wearing damaged Mending gear while levelling. Mending spends each orb on a random damaged Mending item in your hands or armour slots, at 2 durability per point. Anything left over moves on to the next damaged Mending item, and XP only reaches your bar once nothing with Mending needs repair. Take the gear off when you want levels.
- Carrying a full bar into danger. On death you drop 7 × your level in points, capped at 100. At level 30 you hold 1,395 points and can win back at most 100 of them. Spend your levels before a risky trip.
- Breaking a dungeon spawner for its XP. It pays 15–43 points once. A farm built around it pays that back in 3 to 9 zombie kills, then keeps going.
- Treating Trial Chambers as a farm. Each Trial Spawner releases a set number of mobs, then waits 30 minutes before it can be triggered again. That makes it a top-up while you clear the chambers, not a farm.
Start with a spawner farm if you have a dungeon nearby, and move to an enderman farm once the dragon is dead.