In order to get some of the coolest gear in Minecraft, you will need to focus most of your efforts on gathering levels. With enchantments like Mending in the game as well, having enough experience points in the long run has become even more important when trying to get the best possible gear and maintaining it.
However, farming for levels is a tedious, and usually a pretty lengthy process. It can get incredibly boring and difficult after a while, which is why players have started coming up with easier, quick-fix solutions to the problem. Here are some great and pretty easy ways to farm experience without a sweat, and the number one fastest way to actually achieve a high level.
Updated On March 30, 2023, By Helen Ashcroft: As Minecraft continues to expand so to do the ways of farming experience. With the addition of the Deep Dark an extra quick way to farm xp has been found. We've updated this list to make sure you know all the fastest ways to farm xp in Minecraft.
19 Farm The Deep Dark
The Deep Dark is a great biome to farm for XP. Sculk blocks offer a single point of XP when farmed, but Sculk Catalysts give a whopping 20 XP, equivalent to taking out a Piglin Brute but far less difficult. Using just an enchanted hoe you can insta-mine the blocks, quickly gaining XP. Just make sure you take out the Shriekers first, so you don't accidentally summon the Warden.
If you don't fancy the risk then an alternative is to silk touch some of the blocks and build a Sculk farm like this one by Wattles. All the xp benefits with none of the risk.
18 Defeat The Ender Dragon
The Ender Dragon is the big bad of Minecraft, and defeating it will roll credits on the game. However, as a sandbox game the adventure is just beginning, especially since this action unlocks The End, a whole new realm to explore.
As you'd expect finding the End Portal and slaying the Ender Dragon will reward you well. Specifically with 12,000 XP, although these are experience orbs and as such can be collected by anyone close by. The Ender Dragon can also be re-summoned, however it will only provide 500 XP for each subsequent victory. If you need some help we have a guide to defeating the Ender Dragon to help.
17 Kill A Wither
The Wither is another major boss in the game and feels like it should reward you well. However, the Nether Star - a key component of beacons - really is the best reward from this boss, which only grants you a measly 50 XP.
Summoning a Wither requires three wither skeleton skulls, which are difficult to farm, and can be an annoying fight due to the excessive environmental damage and withering effect. You will gain 50XP for each victory but unless you need a lot of beacons this is a very inefficient way to level.
16 Smash A Bottle O' Enchanting
A Bottle O' Enchanting can be thrown on the ground and will release XP orbs worth between three and eleven XP per bottle. You can get your hands on them by looting shipwreck treasure chests, buried treasure, and chests in Pillager outposts. You can also trade with Villagers to get your hands on the bottles.
You'll need a lot to give yourself a decent number of levels, but they can be easily dispensed to give a fast XP boost after they've been collected.
15 Use A Grindstone
Grindstones are used to remove unwanted enchantments from weapons and armor. Simply add the item into the grindstone, and you can disenchant it. You can also repair items by adding another of the same type to combine them and add five percent of the max durability on that item.
Enchantments that are removed in this way will award you with XP, although the amount is variable based on the enchants as well as the number and level of those removed.
14 Find Bastions With Piglin Brutes
Since the 1.16 Nether update exploring the Nether is so much more exciting than it once was, mainly due to the new biomes and mobs that made it even more dangerous and colorful. With these new areas and mobs, came new ways of earning experience points.
The Bastion Remnant is a structure that can be found in the Nether, and it spawns a special Piglin Brute who chases after you with an axe. This tough mob might be scary, and can be lethal if you aren't prepared, but it also provides 20 points of experience when killed. So, gather all your courage and head on over to the closest Bastion to slay one of these beasts.
13 Complete Advancements
Some players might now know this but advancements do provide some experience points. This is only a feature in the Java Edition of Minecraft as of now. You get 50 points for completing Return to Sender, Great View From Up Here, Sniper Duel, Bullseye, and A Complete Catalogue. 65 points are given for Two Birds, One Arrow, and 85 for Arbalistic.
An impressive 100 points are given for Subspace Bubble, Uneasy Alliance, Cover Me in Debris, A Furious Cocktail, Hero of the Village, Monsters Hunted, Two by Two, A Balanced Diet, and Serious Dedication. For 500 points, complete Hot Tourist Destinations and Adventuring Time. Finally, for a whopping 1000 points, complete How Did We Get Here? Basically, just keep playing the game and watch the random XP roll in.
12 Build A Makeshift Farm In The End
If the thought of building massive farms is too overwhelming ot time-consuming for you then rest assured there are quick ways to make makeshift farms as well. One of them requires you to unlock the End by finding a Stronghold and actually beating the Ender Dragon, but it will continuously provide you with steady experience points and Ender Pearls.
All you need to do is create a simple platform that's lower than three blocks in height and stand underneath it while staring at the Endermen around you. The Endermen won't be able to attack you, but you can kill them from safety when they approach you. Just make sure to go right back to the middle if you venture out to aggro them!
11 Build Nether Roof Farms
Accessing the Nether Roof isn't the easiest task in the game, but it's a task definitely worth undertaking for numerous reasons. For one, the Nether Roof is completely covered with bedrock, meaning nothing ever spawns there and traveling around is safe. It's a perfect way to make a network of Nether portals in a safe location.
For two, since nothing spawns on bedrock, creating a platform on top of the bedrock out of some other block type that allows spawning allows the player to easily control the spawning rate of Piglins, Pigmen, and the like to create highly efficient farms. Speaking of which...
10 Create A Piglin Bartering Farm
Piglin bartering is a great way to get a wide range of useful items and can be combined with creating a gold farm that also generates XP. Thanks to ingenious designs created by the Minecraft community you can kill angry mobs then use their gold to trade with a trapped Piglin.
This type of farm provides huge amount of XP alongside gold and a range of drops from the bartering system. These include potions, ender pearls, fire charges and obsidian.
9 Go AFK Fishing
Fishing is one of the best ways to farm XP simply because it doesn't just grant you experience points, but also allows you to fish for food, treasure and some resources you would otherwise have to craft. Fishing even has the chance to yield some rare enchantment books.
A simple AFK fishing farm is something every player needs in their Minecraft world. It's a small contraption that allows you to simply keep pressing down your mouse button while standing still. Add a macro, and you can farm XP while AFK.
8 Trade With Villagers
One way to get experience which is often forgotten about is trading with villagers. Every villager trade offers up to six experience which isn't a lot, but it stacks up fast and is rewarding in other areas. You'll gain access to enchants, armor, and other useful items by building an efficient villager trading hall.
The only downside is that you will need to gather tons of resources and other items to unlock more trades with the villagers, but this process itself also has the chance of gaining you more experience points.
7 Breed Animals
Farming might not sound like the most appealing and efficient way to get XP, but it's surprisingly underrated among most players. By building massive farms of animals, and controlling the population regularly by killing and breeding, you can gain a ton of XP.
Another plus side is that you'll also build up a huge stock of food, as well as maintain crops in order to feed animals, which in turn can also be traded with those villagers we mentioned for some more experience. It's all a big circle of life.
6 Go Monster Hunting At Night
For desperate players, the only option might just be heading out at night to kill some monsters. This is even better in large, empty biomes with no trees like desert and plains biomes, which allow you to scope out the area quickly.
The problem with this is that it's quite dangerous, and venturing out unprepared without proper gear or weapons is a huge risk. Dying means losing all existing experience points, so only players who are confident in their skill should be attempting this chaotic farming method.
5 Smelt Stone Or Sand
Smelting might feel like just one boring part of the game, but it's actually a crucial gameplay element that allows you to get some extra XP. Depending on what you smelt, you might be able to get a surprising amount of it, so any food, ores or even blocks that are smelted are precious when extracted from the oven.
Sand and cobblestone are some of the easiest resources to get and smelt, which will earn you tons of glass for building or trading with villagers, and plenty of stone for any building purposes.
4 Make Any Mob Grinder
If all else fails, the classic way to gather mobs into a safe spot and funnel them all down into a tunnel of death for farming purposes is to build a mob grinder. It's a super efficient way to farm mob drops as well, namely bones, string and gunpowder.
That being said, mob grinders tend to be huge towers requiring quite a bit of resource gathering and planning when it comes to building. You need to be ready to commit to the project, which is why it's not the fastest by any means.
3 Look For Spawners
Spawners, in any shape or form, are a great advantage in the game when found. However, not all of them are equally good. Spider spawners in particular as inconvenient since spiders can escape and climb walls easily, whereas skeleton spawners are the ideal discovery.
Spawners in the Nether, such as Blaze spawners, are also a great way to farm experience points if you are prepared enough in terms of gear. Failing that you can destroy the spawner for up to 43 XP.
2 Create A Bamboo And Cacti Smelter
An extremely popular and highly efficient farm, the bamboo and cacti smelter is ultimately the best and easiest to make farm out there when it comes to getting XP. In fact, this method is so good that players have dubbed it the XP bank.
The beauty of this is that it's a self-fueling farm, where bamboo is used as fuel in furnaces to smelt cacti into dye. The farm is left to run on its own, and when you finally come to empty the furnaces, you'll be showered with tons of experience points from all the cacti that has passed through the furnace.
1 Go Mining
The simple truth is that the fastest way to get experience relatively safely is to go out and mine ores. However, not all ores are equally good. You will want to prioritize mining ores that will immediately grant experience points, such as redstone, coal, lapis, diamond, and emeralds, rather than ores that need to be smelted, like iron and gold. So far, the best ore to mine is Nether quartz, which gives the highest amount of experience possible, 3.5 experience points. However, this is only found in the Nether which is a more dangerous location. After that, the best one to mine is redstone.
Since the caves and cliffs update, new players in particular may want to seek out a mountain biome as an alternative to caving or strip mining. While caves can contain ores they are often dangerous and diamonds and other valuables are more commonly found all the way down near bedrock. The extra caves in the update also mean strip mining can be more difficult as you'll hit open areas with mobs more often. However, coal and iron now spawn frequently on the tops of mountains, a much safer option.