How to Build a Gold Farm in the Nether
Zombified piglin farms produce gold and enormous amounts of XP. Here is how they work, why water is off the table, and where to build.
A gold farm is one of the best builds in Minecraft. It produces gold nuggets and ingots in bulk, and it is simultaneously one of the strongest XP sources in the game — often better than a mob grinder by a wide margin.
The mob you are farming
Zombified piglins spawn throughout the Nether wastes in large numbers, on almost any solid surface, and they spawn regardless of light level. That last detail is what makes gold farms so productive: unlike Overworld mob farms, you are not fighting darkness mechanics, only spawn competition.
They drop rotten flesh, gold nuggets, occasional gold ingots, and golden swords — plus a healthy amount of experience.
Water does not work here
This is the constraint that shapes every Nether farm design: water cannot be placed in the Nether. It evaporates instantly. Every Overworld technique built on water streams for mob transport is simply unavailable.
So gold farms move mobs using:
- Gravity. Platforms with open edges that piglins walk off.
- Drops. Long falls that leave them at low health.
- Trapdoors and open ledges to encourage walking into the hole.
Plan around that from the start rather than trying to adapt an Overworld design.
Where to build
Two good locations, each with trade-offs:
- The Nether roof. Above the bedrock ceiling. Completely flat, nothing else spawns up there, and you have unlimited room. Access takes some effort, but it is the most popular choice for a reason.
- High in the Nether wastes. Build spawning platforms in open air above a lava sea or a large cavern. Easier to reach, but you must ensure no other surfaces nearby steal spawns.
Either way, the principle is the same as every mob farm: your platforms must be the only place mobs can spawn within range.
Before you go, read our nether travel guide — knowing the 8:1 coordinate ratio makes finding the farm again straightforward, and our nether portal calculator does the conversion.
The design
- 1.Build spawning platforms. Flat surfaces spread around a central collection point, with 3 blocks of headroom. More area means more spawns — this scales almost directly.
- 2.Leave the edges open so piglins walk off, or funnel them toward a central hole.
- 3.Drop them a long way. Enough to leave them at very low health but not kill them, so you get the XP and can finish them with a Looting sword.
- 4.Build a kill chamber with a one-block gap you can strike through safely.
- 5.Hoppers into chests to collect gold and flesh automatically.
- 6.Stand in the safe slot and clear them as they arrive.
The aggro problem
Zombified piglins are neutral until provoked, and they aggro as a group. Hit one and every piglin nearby comes for you. In a farm this is mostly manageable because they arrive damaged and contained, but it is the reason your kill chamber needs to be genuinely safe — a gap they cannot path through, not just a corner you are standing in.
Piglins versus zombified piglins
Do not confuse them. Piglins — the living ones in bastions and crimson forests — are the ones you barter with using gold ingots. Zombified piglins are the undead version that spawns in the wastes and that this farm produces.
Wearing gold armour prevents living piglins from attacking you. It has no effect on zombified piglins, which are neutral anyway until struck.
What the output is worth
- Gold ingots for bartering with piglins, which returns ender pearls, obsidian, crying obsidian, fire resistance potions, string and more.
- Gold blocks toward a beacon pyramid — gold is one of the accepted materials, and our beacon calculator gives the exact counts.
- Golden carrots, the best food in the game for saturation, if you pair the gold with a carrot farm. See our food guide.
- Experience in enormous quantities — enough to keep an enchanting setup permanently supplied.
- Rotten flesh, which Cleric villagers buy for emeralds.
Safety notes
Bring a lot of blocks, and never build over open lava without a platform beneath you. Ghasts are the main hazard during construction — a shield blocks their fireballs, and you can deflect them back. Take an Ender Chest so a death does not cost you the trip, and light your build path so you are not fighting the farm's own output while you work.
Once it runs, gold and XP both stop being things you go looking for.