How to trade villagers on Animal Crossing: New Horizons
How to get your faves into your town.
Many people don’t know that you can get your friends’ outgoing villagers to move into your own town. We’ve put together a guide on trading villagers with friends.
With Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ almost 400 villagers, you’ll like some more than others. Well, luckily for you, you’ll be able to pick and choose your favourites, but only if you know someone who’s losing them from their island.
How to trade villagers on Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Follow these steps to get a friend’s villager onto your island:
- Step 1: Have an open lot on your island. This will be shown by the green markers and read ‘for sale’. It doesn’t count if the house is ‘sold’, since it’s then shotgunned by another incoming villager. If you haven’t got the maximum number of villagers currently living on your island (10), you can buy an empty lot from Tom Nook for 10,000 Bells.
- Step 2: Go to your friend’s island when the villager is packing up. This’ll usually be the day after they confirm they’re leaving – the house will be full of cardboard boxes and stuff.
- Step 3: Talk to the villager until you convince them to move house. It’s as simple as that – if you’ve pulled off all the other steps, the villager will move into the empty lot on your island.

Of course, some folks have taken advantage of this method of getting villagers to specific islands, with some charging millions of bells or ludicrous amounts of Nook Miles Tickets for specific villagers, so if you’ve got an in-demand villager moving out, we won’t tell you how to live your life.
That’s all for our villager trading guide – we’ll keep you updated when more is confirmed! Until then, why not beautify your island with the help of our hybrid flower chart, or work towards upgrading Nook’s Cranny?