Introduction
Trading with villagers is a crucial aspect of playing Minecraft Bedrock Edition, offering access to a wide array of valuable items, resources, and enchantments that can significantly enhance your gameplay. This Minecraft Bedrock Trading Guide will walk you through the fundamentals of villager trading in Bedrock Edition, covering everything from finding villages to understanding different villager professions and their trades.
Finding Villages
To begin trading, you first need to locate a village. Fortunately, villages are quite common and can be found in various biomes, each with a distinct architectural style. These biomes include Plains, Savanna, Taiga, Meadows, Snowy Plains, Snowy Taiga, and Desert. Exploring these biomes will eventually lead you to a village where you can interact with its inhabitants.
How Trading Works
Trading is initiated by right-clicking on a villager with a distinct profession. Each villager profession is identifiable by their unique clothing. When you open the trading interface, you will see what items the villager is willing to trade for emeralds and what items they will offer in return. Emeralds serve as the primary currency for all villager trades.
Villagers have different levels of experience, indicated by a badge on their uniform’s belt. They start as Novices, followed by Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, and Master. As you trade with a villager, they gain experience and level up, unlocking more trade options. Each level introduces new and often more valuable trades.
There are two types of trades: buying trades, where you spend emeralds to acquire an item from the villager, and selling trades, where you give the villager an item to receive emeralds. The specific trades a villager offers are determined by their profession, which is linked to a specific job site block.
An unemployed villager (wearing brown clothes without a badge) can become a trader if a valid job site block is placed near them. Once a trade is made with a villager, their profession and initial set of trades are locked.
Villager Professions and Trades
Minecraft Bedrock Edition features various villager professions, each with unique trades and opportunities for resource gathering or gear acquisition. Understanding their trade offers and optimizing trading strategies can result in long-term benefits like infinite emeralds, gear upgrades, and access to otherwise rare items. Here are some notable professions and their key trades:
Armorer
Their job site block is the Blast Furnace. Armorers start by buying coal and iron ingots, then progress to selling iron armor at lower levels. At higher levels, they can offer enchanted diamond armor, making them a key source for top-tier protective gear. They also sell bells, which can be used decoratively or functionally in villages.
Butcher
Their job site block is the Smoker. Butchers purchase raw meats such as pork, chicken, and mutton, providing a useful outlet for meat from farms. They sell cooked meats like cooked chicken and porkchop, offering convenient food sources in exchange for emeralds. Some butchers may also trade dried kelp or sweet berries, which can be farmed in bulk for profit.
Cartographer
Their job site block is the Cartography Table. Cartographers buy paper and glass panes, making them an ideal trading partner if you have a sugarcane or glass farm. They sell various maps, including Ocean Explorer Maps and Woodland Explorer Maps, which lead to rare structures and loot. At higher levels, they offer Trial Explorer Maps and the exclusive Globe Banner Pattern for decoration.
Cleric
Their job site block is the Brewing Stand. Clerics buy rotten flesh, gold ingots, and Nether Wart, converting mob drops and nether resources into emeralds. In return, they sell magical and utility items like Redstone, Lapis Lazuli, Ender Pearls, Bottles o’ Enchanting, and glowstone. This makes them extremely valuable for potion making, enchanting, and XP farming.
Farmer
Their job site block is the Composter. Farmers trade crops like wheat, potatoes, carrots, and beetroots for emeralds, creating a renewable and scalable income stream from basic farms. They sell useful food items such as bread and pumpkin pie, and at higher levels, offer golden carrots and cake, both great for high-tier food supply. Farmers are essential for sustaining hunger and maintaining a village economy.
Fletcher
Their job site block is the Fletching Table. Fletchers buy sticks, feathers, flint, and string, all easy-to-acquire materials, especially from farms or mining. They sell arrows, bows, and crossbows, including enchanted versions that are useful for combat. High-level fletchers can also trade regular arrows for tipped arrows with powerful status effects, enhancing your ranged damage potential.
Librarian
Their job site block is the Lectern. Librarians are prized for selling enchanted books, and you can reset their trades by replacing their Lectern before their first trade to get the enchantments you want. They also buy paper and books and sell related items like bookshelves, name tags, clocks, and ink sacs. With a bit of patience, librarians are one of the best sources for enchantments like Mending or Unbreaking III.
Mason (Stone Mason)
Their job site block is the Stonecutter. Masons buy clay, stone, and Nether Quartz, allowing you to trade building blocks and nether resources for emeralds. They sell bricks, polished stone, chiseled variants, dripstone blocks, and glazed or dyed terracotta. This makes them a fantastic option for builders looking to expand their palette of decorative blocks.
Shepherd
Their job site block is the Loom. Shepherds buy wool, which can be easily automated with sheep farms, and provide emeralds in exchange. In return, they sell various dyed wool, beds, banners, shears, and even paintings. They’re a great trade partner for decorative or functional base furnishings.
Toolsmith
Their job site block is the Smithing Table. Toolsmiths buy coal, iron ingots, and flint, which are all commonly found early in the game. They sell a variety of tools, starting with stone and iron tools and progressing to enchanted diamond tools at higher levels. Some may also offer bells, adding to their utility beyond tools.
Weaponsmith
Their job site block is the Grindstone. Weaponsmiths buy coal, iron ingots, and flint in exchange for emeralds, and offer a range of weapons as they level up. Initially, they sell iron axes and swords, and later offer enchanted diamond weapons. Like other smiths, they also may sell bells, making them multifunctional in both offense and decoration.
Fisherman
Their job site block is the Barrel. Fishermen buy coal and string and sell fish like cod and salmon, as well as fishing rods, including potentially enchanted ones. At higher levels, they can also sell campfires, making them a useful utility trader with sustainable resource conversion through fishing farms.
Leatherworker
Their job site block is the Cauldron. Leatherworkers buy leather and rabbit hides, turning animal byproducts into emeralds. They sell leather armor, dyed armor, and at higher levels, saddles, which are otherwise hard to obtain. Their value lies in accessibility to saddles and basic armor for early-game players.
Profitable Trades and Trade Loops
Certain villager trades can be particularly profitable for players looking to acquire emeralds or valuable items efficiently.
Paper for Emeralds (Librarian/Cartographer): Trading large amounts of paper, easily obtained from sugarcane farms, for emeralds from librarians or cartographers is an incredibly powerful and high-profit trade.
Rotten Flesh for Emeralds (Cleric): If you have a zombie farm, selling rotten flesh to clerics for emeralds is an excellent way to utilize an otherwise less valuable item.
Cooked Meats for Emeralds (Butcher): While butchers buy raw meat for emeralds, they also sell cooked meats like cooked chicken and cooked porkchop for a single emerald, which can be a convenient way to acquire food. Cooked beef restores a significant amount of hunger and saturation, making it a good purchase.
Maps from Cartographers: Cartographers sell Ocean Explorer Maps to locate Ocean Monuments and Woodland Explorer Maps to find Woodland Mansions, which are exclusive and valuable items obtainable only through trading. Journeyman cartographers can also sell Trial Explorer Maps. The Globe Banner Pattern, a unique banner customization, is also exclusively sold by Master Cartographers.
Enchanted Books from Librarians: Librarians are highly sought after for their ability to sell enchanted books. You can repeatedly break and replace their Lectern before trading to cycle through different enchantment offers until you find the desired one. Mending is a particularly valuable enchantment that players often seek from librarians.
Arrows and Tipped Arrows from Fletchers: Fletchers sell arrows for emeralds and can also trade regular arrows for tipped arrows, offering powerful status effects.
Bottles o’ Enchanting from Clerics: Clerics sell Bottles o’ Enchanting for emeralds, providing a portable source of experience points.
Sweet Berries for Emeralds (Butcher): With a large sweet berry farm, selling them to butchers can be an easy source of infinite emeralds, especially if you have multiple butchers.
Villager Popularity and Pricing
Villager trading prices are not static and can be influenced by your actions.
Popularity: Trading with many villagers can increase your popularity within the village, leading to lower prices. Conversely, harming villagers will decrease your popularity and result in higher prices.
Sold Out Items: If you exhaust a villager’s stock of a particular item, the price of that item may significantly increase when it is restocked. If you avoid trading for the higher-priced item, the price may decrease again upon the next restock.
Hero of the Village: Obtaining the “Hero of the Village” status effect by successfully defending a village from a raid will temporarily lower all villager trading prices. Villagers may also reward you with items after a raid.
Demand: Items that have been sold out will experience a price increase when the villager restocks. If these higher-priced items are not purchased, their prices will gradually decrease with subsequent restocks. Demand is tracked per item, not per villager.
Focusing on Single Trades: Repeatedly trading for the same item without engaging in other trades with a villager may cause the villager to raise the price of that specific item temporarily. Waiting will usually cause the prices to return to normal.
Differences Between Bedrock and Java Edition Trading
While the core mechanics are similar, there are some distinctions between villager trading in Bedrock and Java Edition:
Lapis Lazuli: Lapis Lazuli is a renewable resource through cleric trading in Bedrock Edition.
Tool and Book Trading: In Bedrock Edition, villagers ignore NBT data when trading, so the content of a written book does not matter. However, written books can no longer be sold, and villagers do not buy tools with durability.
Restocking: In Bedrock Edition, villagers need to be linked to a bed to restock their trades, although they do not necessarily need to sleep in it. In Java Edition, they only need to work at their job site block.
Trading Interface: The appearance of the trading interface and the indication of sold-out trades differ slightly between the two editions.
Biome-Specific Librarian Trades (Recent Updates)
In more recent versions of Minecraft, including Bedrock Edition experimental features or the “Villager Trade Rebalance” data pack, librarians from different biomes may sell different enchanted books as their master-level trade. This means you might need to transport villagers from various biomes to your trading hall to access all available biome-specific enchantments. Notably, jungle and swamp villagers, which do not spawn naturally, would need to be bred in those biomes to obtain their special enchanted books. Also, enchantments for tridents, crossbows, and fishing rods might no longer be obtainable through general villager trading in these experimental settings.
Leveling Up Villagers
To access the best trades, you need to level up your villagers by trading with them. As you successfully complete trades, a progress bar at the top of the trading interface will fill. Once the bar is full, the villager will level up after you exit the trading interface, gaining new trade options. Selling items to villagers generally provides more experience than buying items.
Restocking Trades
Villagers have a limited stock of each item they offer. Once a trade is exhausted (indicated by an “X” over the arrow), the villager needs to restock. They do this by interacting with their job site block throughout the day, typically restocking their trades two to three times per day.
Trade Manipulation and Discounts
If you repeatedly trade for the same item, villagers may temporarily increase the price. However, if you wait, the prices will eventually return to normal.
One of the most powerful ways to get significantly lower prices is by curing zombie villagers. If a villager is turned into a zombie villager and then cured using a splash potion of weakness and a golden apple, they will offer massive discounts on their trades. Curing a villager multiple times can further reduce prices, potentially down to just one emerald per item. However, in recent versions, a villager only gives a significant discount the first time it is cured from being a zombie villager.
Trading Halls
Many players build trading halls to efficiently organize and protect their valuable trading villagers. These structures typically contain individual cells for each villager with their job site block, making it easy to trade and manage them. Trading halls also help keep villagers safe from hostile mobs. Transporting villagers to a trading hall often involves using minecarts.
Wandering Trader
In addition to village-based traders, Minecraft also features the Wandering Trader. This unique trader spawns randomly near players or at village centers and offers a small selection of trades for emeralds. Wandering Traders do not have a job site block, do not level up, and their trades are one-way (emeralds for items) and unaffected by demand. They sell various unique items, such as different saplings, flowers, coral blocks, and mangrove propagules, which might be difficult to obtain otherwise.
Conclusion
Villager trading in Minecraft is a core game mechanic that enables players to exchange items with villagers for valuable resources and gear. Each villager profession is linked to a specific job site block, and as villagers level up, their trades become more valuable and varied. Professions like Librarian, Cleric, and Armorer are especially sought after for enchanted books, experience items, and high-tier gear. By building farms for renewable resources like paper, rotten flesh, or crops, players can generate emeralds efficiently and maintain a steady supply of essential items.
Strategically managing trades can greatly improve profits. Players can reduce trade prices by curing zombie villagers or earning the “Hero of the Village” effect after defending a raid. Setting up trading halls makes it easier to organize professions, lock in desired trades, and protect villagers from threats. Trade loops, such as buying and breaking bookshelves or converting gravel to flint, can be exploited for infinite emeralds in certain versions.
Recent updates have introduced biome-specific librarian trades, encouraging players to transport and breed villagers in different environments for exclusive enchantments. Additionally, trading mechanics differ slightly between Java and Bedrock Editions, including restock behavior and trade item eligibility. Understanding demand, popularity, and pricing cycles helps players avoid inflated costs and maximize trade value. Altogether, villager trading is a powerful system that supports both utility and creativity in long-term gameplay.
If you’re looking for more guides, be sure to explore the website for more tips and tricks. Enjoy your adventure, and happy mining!
