Trading with villagers in Minecraft has become one of the game’s most important features. Not only can you get rare emeralds, you can then exchange them for valuable items! Every villager can take a different job and therefore offers unique trades you can take advantage of. While some are better than others, it’s worth checking out all trades in detail. There are some great ways to get gear, enchantments, and weapons more easily. Below, we’ve compiled the best options for each villager type, including the top trades both for and for spending emeralds.
For more villager guides, check these out:
- (Minecraft Villager Trading: Permanent Discounts with Zombie Curing)
- (How to Build a Villager Trading Post: Acquire Valuable Items Through Trading)
Minecraft Farmer Villager: Best trades with the Composter
Emeralds → Golden Carrots: Golden carrots are among the best food in Minecraft, but growing carrots and surrounding them with gold nuggets takes time and effort. This trade is unbeatable!
Potatoes → Emeralds: An easy way to collect emeralds with an automatic potato farm and spend them on other trades. Potatoes often drop more than one item, so you’ll fill up stacks quickly.
Librarian: Enchanted books and Mending trades
Emeralds + Book → Enchanted Book: Arguably the best trade in the game, since librarians can sell almost every enchantment. Especially important for Mending to repair your tools with XP. You can get this at the Novice level and reroll by breaking and replacing the lectern until your desired book appears.
Paper → Emeralds: With a large sugar cane farm, this trade is extremely profitable (Minecraft Sugarcane Farm Guide: How to Build an Automatic Sugarcane Farm for Unlimited Paper and Sugar) .
Fisherman: Fishing rod trades and quick emeralds
Emeralds → Enchanted Fishing Rod: Fishing is often overlooked, but it can net you useful items, including enchanted books. Use “Luck of the Sea” and get started!
String → Emeralds: String is easy to collect from spiders and cave spiders, especially in mineshafts. This trade can earn you lots of emeralds.
Cleric: Ender Pearls and gold for emeralds
Emeralds → Ender Pearls: The Cleric has many good trades, but Ender Pearls are our favorite. They’re extremely useful and can be hard to obtain consistently without a dedicated farm.
Gold Ingots → Emeralds: Gold isn’t as rare as you might think and is fairly niche outside of this trade. Build a gold farm in the Nether to make this trade shine (Minecraft Gold Farm: Build an Advanced Gold and XP Farm) .
Leatherworker: Dyed leather armor and leather for emeralds
Emeralds → Leather Armor: Not the strongest trades overall, but handy for leather armor in different colors. Not essential, though.
Leather → Emeralds: Great if you keep many cows. Hoglins and other mounts like horses also drop leather.
Toolsmith and Weaponsmith: Enchanted tools and iron trades
Emeralds → Enchanted Tools: Enchanted items are again your best pick here. You save both levels and diamonds.
Iron Ingots → Emeralds: With an iron farm that spawns and defeats Iron Golems, this trade is a breeze and can fund many other deals.
Cartographer: Explorer maps and glass pane trades
Emeralds → Explorer Maps: These lead you to rare treasures or structures in your world, including Woodland Mansions, Ocean Monuments, or Trial Chambers.
Glass Panes → Emeralds: Paper is great here too, but for variety you can use glass panes. Craft them from just 6 glass blocks and get 16 panes, making this trade quite lucrative!
Mason (Stonemason): Quartz blocks and stone for emeralds
Emeralds → Block of Quartz: Quartz is common in the Nether and via Piglin bartering, but it’s still tedious to farm. If you like building with this white block, trading with the Mason is one of your best options.
Stone → Emeralds: With a pickaxe and “Silk Touch”, this trade is trivial and yields plenty of emeralds. You can also build a stone generator to farm stone effortlessly.
Butcher: Rabbit stew and dried kelp blocks for emeralds
Emeralds → Rabbit Stew: It’s an involved recipe, but it’s also one of the strongest foods in the game (aside from cake). A great way to keep your hunger topped up.
Dried Kelp Block → Emeralds: Kelp is very easy to farm automatically, which makes this trade so convenient.
Armorer: Best enchanted armor and coal trades
Emeralds → Enchanted Armor: Armor can cost you a lot of diamonds and levels. This trade lets you gear up easily and later upgrade to Netherite.
Coal → Emeralds: Coal might not seem great at first, but it shines later when you have more than enough. With a “Fortune III” pickaxe you can get up to 4 coal per ore.
Fletcher: Enchanted bow and sticks for emeralds
Emeralds → Enchanted Bow or Crossbow: Both are essential for ranged combat and get even better with enchantments (Minecraft Ranged Combat Guide: Bow, Crossbow & Trident) .
Sticks → Emeralds: One of the best trades in the game, since sticks are easy to get by chopping trees and crafting from the wood. We recommend using this trade whenever you can.
Shepherd: Colored wool and wool farm for emeralds
Emeralds → Colored Wool: Useful if you don’t want to dye wool yourself or you lack dye. Overall, the Shepherd is better for earning emeralds than for spending them.
White Wool → Emeralds: With a wool farm, this is one of the best ways to quickly and easily earn lots of emeralds (Minecraft Wool Farm Guide: Easily Farm Automatic Wool in All Colors) .
Weaponsmith: Enchanted sword and flint trades
Emeralds → Enchanted Sword: Trade emeralds for a sword with strong enchantments without having to enchant it yourself.
Flint → Emeralds: You can trade iron ingots here too, but flint can be very profitable. Use a “Fortune III” shovel on gravel and you’ll be swimming in flint.
Conclusion: Farm emeralds and secure top items with villager trades
A trading hall should include several of the most important villager types to get the most out of trading. While some offers are quite niche, others can make you rich, letting you stockpile emeralds for better purchases. You’ll also save valuable resources like diamonds and levels on enchanted armor and weapons.
Rent one of our Minecraft servers and jump straight into trading. With this guide, you can focus on the best trades early on or help your friends zero in on the top options.
