Best Way to get XP in Minecraft (20 Fastest XP Farming Strategies) (2024)

This post was last updated on May 1, 2024

If you want to level up fast in Minecraft, this is the guide for you. Finding reliable sources to farm XP in Minecraft is harder than you might think. We’ve put this guide together based on countless hours of XP farming to help you boost those levels like never before.

With this guide, you’ll reach the maximum level quicker than ever before!

What are the Best Ways to Get XP in Minecraft?

Here are some of the best ways to farm those sweet experience points in Minecraft.

1) Mining Ores and Precious Materials

Mining ore and other blocks are one of the easiest and safest places to start farming XP. For new players, this is probably the best method to gain XP early on because you don’t need to fight hostile mobs, and you also set yourself up with plenty of ore for smelting (which also gives XP).

It also gives you a bunch of resources for crafting equipment which helps with more efficient (but more dangerous) XP farming tasks later in the game. Certain ores give more XP than others, but if you’re in the early game it’s better not to prioritize them and just collect whatever you find.

Mining by name, mining by nature! The word is literally in the name of the game. Mining is a lot of fun in Minecraft and was originally the main basis of the game. This is what Minecraft is all about, pulling out your trusty pickaxe and digging through the stone!

2) Smelt Stone, Sand, and Ore

Smelting ores, sand, or stone also gives you experience points – just make sure you are close enough to the furnace to earn XP as the orbs are kicked out. You will need a lot of coal and ore, but this is also a safe method that works well in the early game stage.

Because sand is easy to come by, this is one of the best blocks to smelt for gaining XP. The main resource limitation will be coal. Look for an exposed quarry-style mountain biome, which tends to have plenty of coal.

3) Killing Mobs

One of the most effective ways to collect XP is by killing mobs. Although, this also can be dangerous if you don’t use the right strategy, have enough food, or wear strong armor. When you are geared up with strong enough weapons, you can harvest plenty of XP orbs by running around at night and killing all the mobs you come across.

There are more advanced methods for farming mobs, which we explain in more detail later. The Piglin Brute method (explained later) gives a lot of fast XP but is also the most dangerous as it’s in the nether.

4) Creating an Automatic Mob Grinder

When you have enough resources to build a mob grinder, these are one of the easiest, and maybe even the best way to get XP in Minecraft. You can use them for farming XP while you’re doing other tasks, or you can play games other than Minecraft while you leave it running!

All these require is a little bit of setting up, some hoppers, pistons, Redstone, chests, and a few building blocks. It’s worth the effort though, as this is probably the fastest way to get XP in Minecraft – and it still works when you’re AFK.

Essentially you create a system that automatically spawns mobs based on their spawn conditions. These mobs are then automatically killed (usually by being squashed by a piston). The XP and other items they drop are then moved into a chest via a water and hopper system.

We won’t go into specifics on how to build them in this article, but you should check out this video tutorial if you want to learn how to automatically farm hostile mobs for XP farming.

Easy Automatic Mob Farming Tutorial

5) Find Bastions with Piglin Brutes

Piglin Brutes give more XP gained than most mobs when you defeat them, that’s what makes them one of the best mobs to gain experience in bulk. The only catch is that they are one of the more deadly enemies in Minecraft, and can only be found in the Nether which is the most dangerous place in the game in survival mode.

That said, you can farm XP from Piglin Brutes relatively easily with this cheeky strategy and farm enough experience points to level up all your gear.

1. Build a Nether Portal to gain access to the Nether.
2. Find a Nether Bastion with plenty of Brutes.
3. Before you aggro them, build a safe structure that lets you attack enemies without them being able to reach you. Essentially, build one ring on floor level, leave a gap, then build another ring above you.
4. Aggro the Brutes (with a ranged attack), now they will all start to charge toward you, although they won’t be able to damage you.
5. Now, attack the Brutes through the hole in your structure. This lets you safely farm XP from Piglins without the risk of being killed by them.

This method is relatively safe, although you need to watch out for Ghasts, which can sometimes hit you through the gaps in your shelter. We recommend this strategy more for experienced players than complete noobs!

6) Find Mob Spawners

Mob spawners (commonly found in dungeons, bastions, and fortresses) are one of the other quicker ways for gaining XP when you play Minecraft. These blocks automatically spawn mobs roughly every 10 seconds.

This essentially gives you an unlimited supply of mobs to defeat. This is a good way to gather quite a bit of experience orbs – although make sure you have suitable armor and weapons to defeat the enemies they spawn.

Unfortunately (even with Silk Touch) there is no way to collect a mob spawner block, so you have to leave them in the place you found them.

7) Build a Mob Farm in The End

The End dimension is also a great place to build a mob farm, thanks to the abundance of Endermen and their aggro mechanic.

Because Endermen try to attack you whenever you look at them, you can essentially build a trap in the End, and quickly farm up all the Endermen in the surrounding area.

This also requires minimal amounts of resources to build the farm, although reaching The End can be quite difficult and requires a few hours of playtime to harvest all the materials.

The Enderman farm only needs levers, pistons, Redstone, and a few blocks to be built, and it’s an easy way to collect XP as Endermend drop some of the most XP out of any mobs – particularly given how easy they are to kill with this trap. This is also a great system for farming ender pearls.

Follow this video tutorial for full instructions on how to build a mob farm in the End. Don’t worry, while it sounds complicated you won’t need a computer science degree to complete this setup.

Enderman 1 Hit Farm Tutorial

8) Using a Grindstone

Grindstones are utility blocks in Minecraft that let you repair or disenchant items. If you disenchant items that have enchantments you will collect XP from doing so. If you have a bunch of spare enchanted items lying around, using the grindstone method is a safe and easy way to collect XP.

That said, it’s only really worth it if you have a lot of enchanted gear that you don’t have a lot of use for.

It will give you XP based on the level of enchanting removed from the chosen item.

It’s also worth noting that grindstones can repair items by combining two of the same item together. This also increases the maximum durability of that item by 5%.

9) Create Crop Farms

Harvesting crops also give experience points, so starting a huge wheat farm is one of the easier ways to get XP in Minecraft. Because it’s a sandbox game, you can design your wheat farm however you like.

It’s also worth fighting skeletons when building this farm, as they drop bones which can be used as fertilizer to speed up crop growth.

Building long strips of fertile land next to water is the most effective way to create huge makeshift farms. Wheat is the fastest-growing plant so I recommend starting with that. It takes wheat around 1 in-game day to mature, so around 15 minutes.

Grab that trusty hoe, and start harvesting your crop if you want to get XP while farming up some bread!

10) Destroying Bottles o Enchanting

While they are slightly rare, bottles o enchanting are a decent way to get XP. You can find them in Pillager outposts, buried treasure, looting shipwrecks, or trading with villagers.

Every time you destroy bottles o enchanting you’ll gain anywhere from 3 to 11 xp points – yum!

These can be pretty hard to find though, so it’s probably worth working out a more reliable way to get XP than to rely on these…

11) Design a Piglin Trading Farm

You may know already, but Piglin mobs in the Nether will actually trade with you if you give them gold bars. This technique is a great way to gain a high amount of XP, and can also serve as a gold farm if done correctly.

You will need to get a lot of gold bars, but luckily Piglin Bastions are full of solid gold blocks, which yield 9 gold bars per piece when destroyed. Simply harvest all the gold bars you can, trap a few Piglins in a hole, and start chucking all the gold bars you have.

After a few moments, the Piglins will make their side of the trade, and start showering you with other objects (and XP points) in return. Besides the XP, they’ll trade you nether quartz, ender pearls, potions, obsidian, and fire charges.

12) Killing a Wither

Out of all the bosses in Minecraft, the Wither might be the ugliest – but one of the easier ones to defeat. On death, it drops 50 XP points which is a pretty good amount *(although not that much compared to the Ender Dragon).

The only problem here is that you need 3 wither skeleton skulls to summon the Wither boss. Wither skulls only drop from dead Wither Skeletons, which are found in the Nether. Because this takes a long time to farm, and the boss is kind of annoying to kill thanks to the special attacks it has, we’d suggest another method.

The only real reason for farming this boss is if you need to collect Nether Stars which are used for beacons. Otherwise, if you want to fight bosses we recommend killing the Ender Dragon instead.

13) Defeating the Ender Dragon

While it’s one of the harder bosses in the game (it’s the final boss), the Ender Dragon drops more experience points than any other mob in the entire game. Slaying the Ender Dragon (for the first time) will net you a whopping 12000 experience points, which equates to over 6 level-ups! Any time after the first only gives 500 XP points, but that’s still a decent amount for the level of effort required.

Certain strategies (like using exploding beds) make the Ender Dragon much easier than if you did it the normal way with bows and swords. So check out this guide on the easiest way to defeat the Ender Dragon to speed up the process.

Defeating the Ender Dragon is easy in Minecraft.

14) Trading with Villagers

Villager trading is another relatively easy method to get XP in Minecraft. The only caveat is that it requires a moderate amount of resource collecting in order to trade for their goods.

Whenever you trade with villagers you can earn anywhere from 1 to 6 XP points. Taking the time to understand villager trading is worth it. This can be quite a handy mechanic in Minecraft, regardless of how many experience points it earns you. Trading with villagers is often the fastest way to find a few types of rare items, which otherwise could take hours of hunting.

The quickest way to trade with villagers is by right-clicking on them, then swapping what you have either for emeralds or a direct swap for another item. Doing so will reward you with glowing experience orbs – yay!

We recommend you build a villager trading hall, as outlined in the following tutorial, for maximum trading efficiency. Villager Trading Hall Tutorial.

15) Breeding Animals

Animal breeding is a cute and easy way to fill up your experience bar. Breeding passive mobs in Minecraft is super safe as well. Any time a baby animal pops out, you’ll get XP as a reward.

Breeding animals is relatively straightforward. All you need to do is lure two or more animals into the same facility, and make them “fall in love” by feeding them the specific food they need. You can tell when they are ready to breed as love hearts will bubble out of them.

This list shows what items each animal type needs for breeding:

• Bees – Flowers
• Cats – Raw salmon or cod
• Foxes – Sweet berries
• Horses & Donkeys – Golden carrots or golden apples
• Llamas – Bales of hay
• Pandas – Bamboo
• Pigs – Beetroot, carrots, or potatoes
• Rabbits – Carrots, golden carrots, or dandelions
• Sheep, Mooshrooms, and Cows – Wheat
• Turtles – Seagrass
• Wolves – Any raw meat (not fish though)

16) Fishing

Fishing is another safe, easy, and fun method for gaining experience points in Minecraft. All you need is a fishing rod and some water! We also recommend you enchant the fishing rod with the Mending enchant, as this means it won’t degrade and you can basically fish continuously forever.

Whenever you successfully catch something from fishing, you are given an experience orb that gives between 1 and 6 experience points. Fishing is a more interactive method to gain XP, as you have to constantly interact with the fishing rod to catch things.

If you are feeling lazier, or want something that requires less interaction and effort, then an automatic mob farm might be a more suitable method for gaining experience.

17) Build an AFK Fishing Farm

While fishing is a decent way to get XP and other items, it does require constant attention – you won’t catch anything otherwise. Fortunately, if you’re busy (or lazy) you can make an AFK fishing farm to automatically do all the hard work for you. (ok, it is not that hard but still… effort.)

To maximize the potential of this you will need to make a mouse macro, which is simpler than you might think. However, it does require downloading some third-party software unless you know how to automate your computer with programming like Pyautogui.

Check out this full video tutorial – How To Build An AFK Fishing Farm In Minecraft

18) Create Nether Roof Farms

Everyone knows the Nether is a dark, mysterious dimension in Minecraft (originally based on hell). However, not everyone is aware of the Nether roof. Yep, that’s right, there is a roof to the Nether. If you build up high enough you will eventually reach a level of indestructible bedrock. While this might seem restricting, it can actually be exploited to make a makeshift farm for Nether mobs.

If you want to gain experience, you can make fast XP by creating a Nether mob farm at the top of the Nether roof. We won’t go into details now, but follow the tutorial below if you want to try this method.

19) Strip Mining

Strip mining is one of the most efficient ways to gather underground resources, and is also a pretty decent way to collect XP.

To strip mine effectively, dig a tunnel fairly deep into the ground. Now all you need to do is walk and mine in a single direction for as long as you want. Then stop, turn around, and mine all the way back.

This technique takes a while, but slowly uncovers all the structures and ore veins in an underground location. It’s a pretty decent way to gather XP because you will eventually collect a pretty large amount of ore and rarities.

Just make sure you bring a bunch of wood and sticks so you can make torches, and build over any deep caverns you discover. It’s always worth investigating dungeons, as they have chests, mob spawners, and other XP-rich encounters. We also recommend you check out any pre-existing mines you found, as these typically have a lot of ores.

20) Completing Advancements

In Minecraft Java Edition, Advancements are the equivalent of achievements. You unlock them for completing certain objectives in the game, like finding diamonds, killing certain mobs, or moving through dimensions.

Completing Advancements actually rewards players with experience points, and is a pretty fun way to get XP. Basic achievements reward 50, 65, or 85 points. Mid-range Advancements reward 100 or 500 points, and the top tiers offer a tasty 1000 XP!

If you want to get XP through Advancements, check out this list which shows you all the available Advancements in the game!

All Advancements in Minecraft

How Does XP Work in Minecraft?

Now you’ve seen all of the best methods to gain XP, check out the uses and benefits of having stacked all the experience!

Uses for XP Points in Minecraft

There are a few uses for XP in Minecraft, here are the main 3:

1. Enchanting Items – Your enchanting table uses XP, the more XP points you have, the more levels of enchanting you can use
2. Powering Anvils – Anvils also use XP, if you want to repair, rename, or combine items.
3. Repair items – you can fix your weapons, tools, and armor using experience points.

Benefits of XP

There is a range of benefits to collecting XP. Here are the most important.

1. Easier Combat – with more levels, you’ll be able to power up your weapons and armor with more defense and damage. This makes slaying your enemies much quicker and easier.
2. Faster Mining – Using your XP to power up mining tools like pickaxes will increase your mining speed. A fully enchanted diamond pickaxe can destroy most blocks in a single tap!
3. Higher Levels – The more XP you gain, the higher your level becomes. Each level unlocks more powers and enchantments – helping you to extend your health bar and power up your gear.
4. Advancements – Some advancements are unlocked by progressing your XP, while others require a certain level. This rewards you with more XP and abilities.
5. More Trading Options – The higher your level and XP, the more advanced trading villagers you’ll be able to unlock. This makes it easier to swap rare items from traders and complete certain villager-based objectives.
6. Exploration – With more powerful gear, you’ll be able to adventure harder and further than before. By farming a bunch of XP you will be able to power yourself up and complete some of the harder challenges in Minecraft.

Conclusion

Using any of these methods will quickly accelerate your XP growth, helping you to unlock higher enchanting levels and stats. There is a huge variety of techniques for gaining XP in Minecraft, from super safe to extremely dangerous.

We recommend you start off with the safe methods and hold off on the dangerous ones until you are more skilled and better geared.

Take your pick and happy monster hunting!

FAQs

What Gives Most XP Minecraft?

The single task which gives the most XP in Minecraft is killing the Ender Dragon. The first time you slay this mighty beast you will be rewarded with an eye-watering 12000 experience points! That’s enough to level up over 6 times. Every time you kill it after the first, you are given 500xp, which is still pretty decent.

Besides killing bosses and mobs, the fastest way to get XP in Minecraft would be by strip mining, and smelting all the blocks you can. This is also a fun way to do it that won’t become too monotonous.

What is the Best Ore to Get XP in Minecraft?

Diamonds and emeralds give the most XP when mined in Minecraft – while these blocks are pretty rare, it’s definitely worth tracking them down. Not only will you get a bunch of experience points, but you also get sweet diamonds and emeralds which are super useful in the game.

Do All Mobs Give the Same XP?

Not all mobs give the same amount of XP in Minecraft. Passive mobs like sheep, pigs, and other friendly animals give no experience. Hostile mobs typically give 5xp each, although ones with extra armor or weapons will give an extra 1-3 points. Some special enemies like babies, Elder Guardians, and Blazes will give 10-12 points.

What are the Best Enchantments to Spend Your XP on in Minecraft?

The best enchantments to buy with your XP ultimately depend on the type of gear you are enchanting. There are two enchantments that work pretty well on anything though, which are Mending and Unbreaking. Mending slowly repairs items each time you gain XP, and Unbreaking increases the base durability of any enchanted item!