10 Best XP Farms For Minecraft 1.20 (2024)

Farms for XP in Minecraft help you level up to apply enchantments to your weapons and armor as you take on more significant challenges in your world. Any contraption that builds experience will also drop valuable resources that could be used in other projects. Multiple places that generate XP for you will help reduce time spent hunting for experience and automate the process to make leveling up less tedious.

XP is spent at Enchantment Tables and Anvils that you build, letting you give items special properties or repair various objects that you've extensively used. The enchantments in Minecraft's 1.20 update have introduced new traits to upgrade your strongest weapons, armor, and other tools. Both crafting stations mentioned require a lot of XP but are highly convenient places to make some of your best gear.

10 Basic Mob Spawner Farm

Easiest XP Farm

A simple kill room for hostile mobs is one of the easiest XP farms to make in Minecraft after you harvest a spawner from structures deep within cave biomes. Creating a room filled with water around the mob spawner will drag enemies into a pool of lava, eliminating them instantly. Even if this can be tricky to set up, the large amount of experience gained from the numerous mobs killed cannot be underestimated.

9 Double Furnace Cooking Farm

XP From Smelting

Setting up a Double Furnace auto smelting farm is another easy way to quickly get a bunch of XP by constantly cooking food harvested from animals. You only need a good amount of coal or another fuel source to keep your Furnaces active. As long as you have a steady supply of raw ingredients from cows, chickens, or other livestock, you will have no problem maintaining this Minecraft XP farm.

8 Enderman Farm

For Infinite XP

A far more difficult upgrade to a Basic Mob Farm in Minecraft focuses on Endermen alone. You have to reach The End through a Stronghold's portal before you can even begin building this kind of farm. According to YouTube creator Rediscover Redstone, the trick with this type of farm comes from building a gateway made from Leaf Blocks that lures Endermen in when you look at them for an easy kill as they become aggressive.

7 Guardian Farm

Mob With Most XP Drops

Ocean biomes in Minecraft can sometimes host Underwater Temples guarded by Guardians, rare mobs that yield some of the highest quantities of XP when killed. YouTube creator silentwisperer mentions how a series of waterways built above the Guardian's Temple will help funnel them into a trap made of Redstone. Pistons made along these watery paths lead these mobs to their eventual doom.

You will need to gather Prismarine Blocks and construct Sea Lantern pillars to regulate how Guardians will spawn. These creatures have stricter regulations behind their appearance, a trait not shared by other hostile mobs in Minecraft. The unique aspect of water in the contraption you create means that the glowing orbs of XP produced from dead Guardians can be directed to flow to a single spot for you to collect.

6 Creeper Farm

Worth The Risk

Ironically, the least dangerous mobs to harvest XP from are actually Creepers since it's far easier to predict how they will react in different situations. Building glass to encapsulate a group of Creepers lets you see these creatures and control their movements without worrying about an unexpected explosion. A trick with Snow Golems shown by YouTube creator wattles can manipulate how Creepers will spawn.

5 Automatic Dried Kelp Farm

A Quick & Easy Farm

Some of the best farms to make in Minecraft come from the most unlikely sources, with Kelp being a common material you may not expect to be important. Like the Double Furnace XP farm, this gadget uses Hoppers to funnel destroyed Kelp into chests as experience is generated. According to Rediscover Redstone once more, you can place Kelp on Sand Blocks and build a machine that can destroy it as it grows over and over.

You will need to make a small stone building, preferably with Glass Blocks that allow you to see inside the device necessary for the farm. Using Pistons, you can set up a timer that destroys the Kelp right as it grows to the right length, causing it to drop XP orbs. You only need two block spaces to grow this plant, making this a quick place to grab a decent amount of experience without as much effort as other Minecraft farms.

4 Pillager Farm

910,000 XP Per Hour

Raiding a Pillager Outpost in your Minecraft world is a surefire way to gain XP, but these human-like enemies are formidable opponents to take on. YouTube creator Nico is LOST has discovered a way to make a kill zone near a Pillager base to surpass enemy mob limits and produce mountains of XP. A complex series of wide platforms and elevators comprise a structure you can build using instructions from the video below.

3 Automatic Cactus Farm

Simple & Effective

The Kelp Farm can inspire other XP farms fueled by vegetation, including an Automatic Cactus farm that is slightly more ambitious. A common plant found in Desert biomes in Minecraft, Cacti are typically used to create green dye or provide a prickly aesthetic to your base. However, elevated sand and Iron Blocks can be combined to shear growing Cactus plants and cultivate XP orbs on a much larger scale than Kelp.

YouTube creator Regund shows a simple concept behind using this strategy to take advantage of rapid XP drops from the destroyed Cacti. What makes this farm so useful is that the abundance of Cactus plants is apparent even in Survival Mode. Even with the 1.20 update to Minecraft adding several new biomes, like Cherry Blossom Forests, Deserts are still extremely common places to find to easily let you collect this resource.

2 Gold Piglin Farm

Best Nether Farm

An XP farm proposed by YouTube creator by James, a Piglin farm gives perhaps the largest amount of experience from harvesting defeated mobs in Minecraft. The notorious hordes of Piglins seen in the fiery realm of the Nether are dangerous to take on, even under the best circ*mstances. The video below describes how you can build a massive portal with an automatic flint and steel lighter to lure Piglins to their deaths consistently.

1 AFK Fish Farm

Affective & Convenient

The best XP farm in Minecraft is an AFK Fish Farm since it takes the least effort to make and requires almost no input from your character, as shown by Rediscover Redstone on YouTube. Setting up a chest surrounded by signs and then placing water from a bucket in that space creates a tiny pond that cannot overflow. Once again, Rediscover Redstone has put together an instructive video on making this structure with minimal materials.

The next step in this process involves making a Fishing Rod with a specific enchantment that allows you to catch rarer types of fish in the pond you created. As of this time of writing, a glitch lets you use a Music Note Block and a Trapdoor to earn unlimited XP by continuing to catch fish in this spot. The safety of this small fishing zone means you can build it practically anywhere you want in Minecraft.

The best XP farms in Minecraft are where your experience skyrockets with the smallest input or effort once the right mechanisms have been made.

Sources: YouTube/Rediscover Redstone, YouTube/by James, YouTube/Nico is LOST, YouTube/wattles, YouTube/silentwisperer, YouTube/Regund