How to barter with piglins in Minecraft (Java 1.21)

To barter with piglins, put on one piece of golden armour, find an adult piglin in the Nether, and throw it a gold ingot or use the ingot on it. In Java it looks at the gold for 6 seconds, then tosses you one random item ^[1]. You can’t choose the item, so this guide gives the full odds for your version, what each stack of gold buys on average, and the mistakes that turn a trade into a fight.

What you need before you barter

• Gold ingots. They are the only currency. Piglins pick up other gold things, such as nuggets, golden tools or blocks of gold, but they barter for nothing except ingots ^{[1, 2]}.
• One piece of golden armour. Adult piglins are neutral to a player wearing at least one piece; without it they attack ^[2]. Golden boots are the cheapest piece at 4 ingots ^[3], and they leave your other slots free for real armour.
• An adult piglin. Babies take the ingot and keep it, and piglin brutes (the axe-carrying bastion guards) ignore gold entirely ^[1].

Since Java 1.21.2, which armour keeps piglins calm is set by an item tag, piglin_safe_armor, which holds golden armour by default ^[3]. On a normal world nothing changes: gold is still the rule.

Where to find piglins

Piglins spawn in groups in Nether wastes and crimson forests, at light level 11 or lower in Java ^[2]. Crimson forests are the red-fogged fungus woods, where they come in groups of 3 or 4 ^[4]. They also generate inside bastion remnants ^[2]. They don’t spawn in warped forests, soul sand valleys or basalt deltas ^[5].

Bastions have the most piglins, and gold blocks and gold-filled chests too ^[5]. They also have brutes, which golden armour doesn’t calm. If you’re new to bastions, read how to fight a piglin brute first. Crimson forests and the open wastes are safer for a first trade.

How to barter, step by step

1. Put on your golden piece before you go through the portal.
2. Hold a gold ingot and either drop it near an adult piglin or use it on the piglin (right-click by default). Either works ^[1].
3. Wait. The piglin holds the ingot up and examines it for 6 seconds (120 game ticks) in Java ^[1].
4. Pick up the item. It throws the item toward you, or straight up if it can’t see a player ^[1].

A full cycle, from one accepted ingot to the next, takes 6.05 seconds in Java and 8 seconds in Bedrock ^[1]. So one piglin needs about 64 × 6.05 ≈ 387 seconds, roughly six and a half minutes, for a stack of 64 ingots. More piglins, less time.

When dropping doesn’t work

If the mob griefing game rule is off, piglins don’t pick up items. You can still barter by using the ingot on the piglin directly ^{[1, 6]}. On Java 1.21.4 the rule is called mobGriefing; Java 1.21.11 renamed it mob_griefing ^[1].

Piglin bartering odds in 1.21

Each ingot rolls once on a weighted table. Java 1.21.6 added the dried ghast to that table, so the odds depend on your version [@mcwiki-bartering, sec. “History”; @mcnet-java-1-21-6]:

• Java 1.16.2 through 1.21.5: the weights add up to 459 ^[7].
• Java 1.21.6 and later: they add up to 469, because the dried ghast takes 10 ^[1].

Sources for the table: the current loot table ^[1] and the archived one for 20w28a to 25w17a ^[7]. In Bedrock, plain arrows replace the spectral arrows ^[1].

So more than half of all trades are bulk blocks and odds and ends: the nine items at 40 make up 360 of the 459 weight, about 78 % in 1.21.4. The rare items are rare. The Soul Speed book is 5 in 459, about 1.09 %.

What a stack of gold buys

The wiki works out the average ingots per item from the middle of each range ^[7]. Using the same averages, here is what 64 ingots bring on 1.21.4, worked out as 64 × chance × average amount:

• Ender pearls: 64 × 10/459 × 3 ≈ 4.2 pearls (about 15.3 ingots per pearl).
• String: 64 × 20/459 × 6 ≈ 16.7 string, enough for a few beds or a bow.
• Obsidian: 64 × 40/459 ≈ 5.6 blocks.
• Crying obsidian: 64 × 40/459 × 2 ≈ 11.2 blocks.
• Fire Resistance, either kind: 64 × 16/459 ≈ 2.2 potions.

On 1.21.6 and later each of these is about 2 % lower, because 469 replaces 459. These are averages; one stack can bring no pearls at all.

The pearl numbers are covered in more depth in how to get ender pearls fast, and crying obsidian for a Nether spawn point in how to use a respawn anchor.

What bartering is uniquely good for

Bartering is the only renewable source of nether quartz, crying obsidian, soul sand, nether brick (Java), gravel, blackstone and the Soul Speed enchantment ^[1].

Where the gold comes from

You’ll need a lot of ingots, so plan where they come from:

• Nether gold ore. It’s common in the Nether: the game tries to place it 10 times per chunk, in every Nether biome, from Y 10 to 117 ^[8]. Any pickaxe mines it, and each block drops 2–6 gold nuggets in Java ^[8]. Nine nuggets craft one ingot ^[9]. At the wiki’s average of about 4 nuggets per block, that’s around 2.25 blocks per ingot.
• Silk Touch, then smelt. Fortune III only averages 8.8 nuggets, less than an ingot, so the wiki says mining with Silk Touch and smelting the ore is slightly better ^[8].
• Overworld gold. Smelt raw gold or gold ore; badlands biomes have more of it ^[9].
• Bastions. They hold gold blocks and chests with gold ^[5]. A block of gold crafts into 9 ingots ^[9].

What makes piglins turn on you

Golden armour stops piglins attacking you on sight. A few things still anger them [@mcwiki-piglin, sec. “Aggravation”]:

• Taking off your gold. Piglins within about 15 blocks that can see you attack.
• Opening or breaking a container: chests, trapped chests, ender chests, barrels, shulker boxes, and chest minecarts or chest boats. Version 1.16.2 added chest minecarts to the list ^[10]. Hoppers don’t count.
• Breaking a gold block or gold ore, as above.
• Hitting any piglin or brute. Every piglin within 16 blocks of the one you hit turns on you, with no line of sight needed.

They stay angry for 30 seconds ^[2]. Most anger can be calmed by giving them gold. The piglin you actually hit is the exception: it won’t take gold and won’t barter while it’s angry ^[2]. Hit a piglin mid-trade and it keeps the ingot ^[1].

Two more ways to lose a trade:

• Bring a piglin to the Overworld and it turns into a zombified piglin after 15 seconds. In Java it drops the ingot it was examining ^[2].
• Peaceful difficulty in Java leaves Overworld piglins stuck mid-change, and they don’t barter ^[2].

Small things that help

• Piglins pick up Soul Speed boots they just bartered and wear them. Throw them a pair of golden boots and they’ll swap and drop the iron ones ^[1].
• Bartering piglins don’t run from zombified piglins or zoglins while they examine the gold ^[1].
• Dispensers and droppers can feed them. Piglins pick up items those blocks throw ^[2], which is how automatic bartering farms work. Build such a farm in the Nether, away from soul fire and zombified piglins, and name-tag the piglins or give them gold armour so they don’t despawn ^[11].
• The “Oh Shiny” advancement comes the first time a piglin picks up a gold item you dropped (gold nuggets don’t count) ^[2].

Nixi’s angle: she never traded, and gold was still the lesson

Nixi is an openly AI VTuber whose bot plays Minecraft Java 1.21.4 on its own, live on Twitch. She has never bartered. Her play logs from both survival runs (27 September to 9 October 2026) contain no trade with a piglin, and in over a thousand inventory clean-ups she never threw away a gold ingot. Her Nether trips went to fortresses and warped forests, not bastions.

Gold still mattered, because piglins attacked her. Her death records hold 144 deaths from 1 to 9 October 2026. Ten of them carry the root cause “no gold on in the Nether”, the first on 1 October at 10:38 and the last on 5 October at 06:04. In each, she had gone through the portal without gold on:

• 3 times slain by a piglin;
• 2 times into lava while escaping piglins;
• 3 times into lava with no mob named;
• once into lava escaping a magma cube, and once killed by an enderman.

The fix in her planner: gold boots on before the portal, as part of the mission kit.

Her logs show what the fix cost. She crafted golden boots 5 times, on 28 September (twice), 2, 5 and 9 October. Five other tries failed for missing ingredients. Each pair is 4 ingots ^[3], and four ingots are 36 nuggets of nether gold ore. That’s a small price next to ten deaths.

Her stock of facts already carries the right odds. The line she uses says a barter gives 2–4 pearls “2.2% of the time”, which is 10 in 459 rounded and matches her server’s 1.21.4 ^[7]. If a future run sends her to a bastion for pearls, this post will add her real trade counts. Until then, her lesson is the one at the top of this guide: wear the gold first.

FAQ

What is the best thing to get from piglin bartering?

It depends on what you need. Speedrunners barter for ender pearls, string, obsidian and Fire Resistance ^[5]. For long-term play, Soul Speed books and boots are the prizes, since bartering is the only renewable source of Soul Speed ^[1].

Why won’t a piglin take my gold?

Check five things [@mcwiki-bartering, sec. “Mechanics”; @mcwiki-piglin]:

• It may be a baby, which keeps the ingot.
• It may be a brute, which ignores gold.
• It may be a piglin you hit, which won’t barter while angry.
• If the mob griefing rule is off, piglins don’t pick up items; use the ingot on the piglin.
• Only ingots barter. Nuggets and gold tools don’t.

Do piglins barter in the Overworld?

No. A piglin outside the Nether turns into a zombified piglin after 15 seconds, and zombified piglins don’t barter ^[2].

How long does bartering take?

6 seconds of examining per ingot in Java, and a full cycle of 6.05 seconds; Bedrock takes 8 seconds ^[1].

Did piglin bartering change in 1.21?

Java 1.21.6 added dried ghasts as a barter, so every other item’s chance dropped slightly, from n/459 to n/469 ^{[12, 1]}. The bigger change was in 1.16.2, which reworked the loot table ^{[10, 1]}.