FISHERMAN
Workstation: Barrel|16 trades across 5 levels
Buys fish and string, sells cooked fish and campfires. Can sell enchanted fishing rods at higher levels.
- Last checked
- 11 August 2026
- Java Edition
- 26.2, 16 of 16 rows found
- Bedrock Edition
- 1.26.30.5, 15 of 16 matching
- Edition differences
- none, 1 rolled price aside
What is the Fisherman?
The Fisherman is one of Minecraft's 13 working villager professions, and an unemployed adult villager takes the job the moment it claims a Barrel, the block that doubles as its job-site marker. Place that barrel within range of a jobless villager and it will path to the block, change into fisherman clothing, and open its Novice-tier offers. Remove the barrel before any deal is struck and the villager drops the profession again.
Across its 5 career tiers this villager exposes 16 distinct trades in total, and it is primarily an emerald sink that buys your surplus materials. It will take string, coal, raw cod, and raw salmon, among other items, off your hands for emeralds, and in return it sells bucket of cod, campfire, and enchanted fishing rod. The Fisherman is not biome-specific, so the same trade pool appears no matter which biome the village generates in.
For players farming currency, the Fisherman's quickest route to an emerald is handing over 1 oak boat at the Master tier, which is worth keeping in mind when you decide whether to build a trading hall around this profession.
| Input | Output | Emeralds | Uses | Villager XP |  Java 26.2 |  Bedrock 1.26.30.5 | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | | 16 | 2same in Bedrock | verified | verified | |||
| | 16 | 1same in Bedrock | verified | verified | |||
| | 16 | 2same in Bedrock | verified | verified | |||
| | 16 | 1same in Bedrock | verified | verified |
The game draws 2 of the 4 offers this tier can hold, so any one of them is on 50% of novice fishermans, and a specific one takes about 2 rolls to turn up. Bedrock lands on the same chance from its own table. Counted from the game's own draw sizes. How that check works.
Curing a zombie villager is worth 125 reputation, taken off the first thing you hand over. The discount is capped by the price, so here it runs from 2 on the bucket of cod (3 to 1) up to 6 on the coal (10 to 4). No cost ever drops below one.
The string offer pays the villager 2 XP a use and the raw cod for cooked cod offer pays 1, so the 10 XP from Novice to Apprentice is 5 trades one way and 10 the other. That fits inside the 16 uses the offer holds, so one stock run covers it. Read out of each trade's own file. How that check works.
All 4 trades on this page were read out of the trade files Minecraft Java 26.2 ships in its own data, checked on against the item, both amounts and the use limit. Bedrock 1.26.30.5 is read as well, and where it disagrees the row says how. Which files, and what is not checked.
| Input | Output | Emeralds | Uses | Villager XP | Java 26.2 | Bedrock 1.26.30.5 | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | 16 | 10same in Bedrock | verified | verified | |||
| | 12 | 5same in Bedrock | verified | verified | |||
| | 16 | 5same in Bedrock | verified | verified |
The game draws 2 of the 3 offers this tier can hold, so any one of them is on 67% of apprentice fishermans, and a specific one takes about 1.5 rolls to turn up. Bedrock builds this tier out of 2 groups and draws 1 of 1 and 1 of 2, so there the same offer is on 100% or 50% of them. Counted from the game's own draw sizes. How that check works.
Curing a zombie villager is worth 125 reputation, taken off the first thing you hand over. The discount is capped by the price, so here it runs from 1 on the campfire (2 to 1) up to 6 on the raw cod (15 to 9). No cost ever drops below one.
The raw cod offer pays the villager 10 XP a use and the raw salmon for cooked salmon offer pays 5, so the 60 XP from Apprentice to Journeyman is 6 trades one way and 12 the other. That fits inside the 16 uses the offer holds, so one stock run covers it. Read out of each trade's own file. How that check works.
All 3 trades on this page were read out of the trade files Minecraft Java 26.2 ships in its own data, checked on against the item, both amounts and the use limit. Bedrock 1.26.30.5 is read as well, and where it disagrees the row says how. Which files, and what is not checked.
| Input | Output | Emeralds | Uses | Villager XP | Java 26.2 | Bedrock 1.26.30.5 | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | 16 | 20same in Bedrock | verified | verified | |||
| | 3 | 10same in Bedrock | verified, rolled price | price computed in game | Random enchantment |
The game draws 2 of the 2 offers this tier holds, which is all of them, so every journeyman fisherman shows this whole table. Nothing to roll for at this tier. Bedrock lands on the same chance from its own table. Counted from the game's own draw sizes. How that check works.
Curing a zombie villager is worth 125 reputation, taken off the first thing you hand over. The discount is capped by the price, so here it runs from 6 on the raw salmon (13 to 7) up to 7 on the enchanted fishing rod (8 to 1). No cost ever drops below one.
The raw salmon offer pays the villager 20 XP a use and the enchanted fishing rod offer pays 10, so the 80 XP from Journeyman to Expert is 4 trades one way and 8 the other. That fits inside the 16 uses the offer holds, so one stock run covers it. Read out of each trade's own file. How that check works.
All 2 trades on this page were read out of the trade files Minecraft Java 26.2 ships in its own data, checked on against the item, both amounts and the use limit. 1 of them has a price the game rolls per villager, so the range is what it can roll rather than a fixed number. Bedrock 1.26.30.5 is read as well, and where it disagrees the row says how. Which files, and what is not checked.
| Input | Output | Emeralds | Uses | Villager XP | Java 26.2 | Bedrock 1.26.30.5 | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | 12 | 30same in Bedrock | verified | verified |
This tier holds one offer and every villager gets it, so every expert fisherman shows this whole table. Nothing to roll for at this tier. Bedrock lands on the same chance from its own table. Counted from the game's own draw sizes. How that check works.
Curing a zombie villager is worth 125 reputation, taken off the first thing you hand over. On this tier that is 5 off every trade, so the tropical fish goes from 6 to 1. No cost ever drops below one.
Every offer here pays the villager 30 XP a use, so the 100 XP from Expert to Master is 4 trades whichever one you use. That fits inside the 12 uses the offer holds, so one stock run covers it. Read out of each trade's own file. How that check works.
The 1 trade on this page was read out of the trade files Minecraft Java 26.2 ships in its own data, checked on against the item, both amounts and the use limit. Bedrock 1.26.30.5 is read as well, and where it disagrees the row says how. Which files, and what is not checked.
| Input | Output | Emeralds | Uses | Villager XP | Java 26.2 | Bedrock 1.26.30.5 | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | 12 | 30same in Bedrock | verified | verified | |||
| | 12 | 30same in Bedrock | verified | verified | |||
| | 12 | 30same in Bedrock | verified | verified | |||
| | 12 | 30same in Bedrock | verified | verified | |||
| | 12 | 30same in Bedrock | verified | verified | |||
| | 12 | 30same in Bedrock | verified | verified |
The game draws 2 of the 6 offers this tier can hold, so any one of them is on 33% of master fishermans, and a specific one takes about 3 rolls to turn up. Counted from the game's own draw sizes. How that check works.
Curing a zombie villager is worth 125 reputation, taken off the first thing you hand over. On this tier that is 3 off every trade, so the pufferfish goes from 4 to 1. No cost ever drops below one.
Master is the top tier. Its offers still pay 30 XP a use, but there is no tier above for that XP to open. Read out of each trade's own file. How that check works.
The oak boat is a plains one, the spruce boat a snowy or taiga one, the jungle boat a desert or jungle one, the acacia boat a savanna one and the dark oak boat a swamp one. No other fisherman offers them, whatever its tier.
A villager's type is the biome it spawned in, so this is settled before you ever meet it. Read out of merchant_predicate in each trade's own file. How that check works.
All 6 trades on this page were read out of the trade files Minecraft Java 26.2 ships in its own data, checked on against the item, both amounts and the use limit. Bedrock 1.26.30.5 is read as well, and where it disagrees the row says how. Which files, and what is not checked.
Novice to Master: what the climb costs
A Fisherman does not level up on time served, it levels up on trading XP, and each of its offers pays a fixed amount of it. That makes the climb a countable thing rather than a chore: 19 trades take one from Novice to Master if you use the offer that pays most at every tier, and the tiers below say which offer that is.
| Climb | XP | Offer that pays most | Trades | You hand over | You get back |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Novice to Apprentice | 10 | The coal offer, 2 XP a useor the other offer here, which pays 2 too83% of fishermans here show at least one of them | 5 | 50 coal | 5 emeralds |
| Apprentice to Journeyman | 60 | The raw cod offer, 10 XP a useon 67% of fishermans at this tier | 6 | 90 raw cod | 6 emeralds |
| Journeyman to Expert | 80 | The raw salmon offer, 20 XP a use | 4 | 52 raw salmon | 4 emeralds |
| Expert to Master | 100 | The tropical fish offer, 30 XP a use | 4 | 24 tropical fish | 4 emeralds |
| Novice to Master | 250 | no restock needed | 19 | 50 coal, 90 raw cod, 52 raw salmon and 24 tropical fish | 19 emeralds |
The bill for the whole climb is 50 coal, 90 raw cod, 52 raw salmon and 24 tropical fish. It pays for itself: 19 emeralds more than you started with by the time it is Master. No offer in the route runs past what its slot holds, so a Fisherman with full stock can be walked all the way up in one sitting.
Counted, not timed. The XP each offer pays is the xp field of its own trade file, the 10, 60, 80, 100 XP between the tiers is VillagerData.NEXT_LEVEL_XP_THRESHOLDS, and the prices and use counts are the table above. Where a tier has more than one offer paying the top rate, the route takes the one any villager can hold, then the one that pays rather than costs, then the cheapest. XP over the line is not lost, it counts toward the next tier, so no trade in the route is wasted. How that check works.
Fisherman trades by tier (Novice to Master)
A Fisherman climbs five career ranks, and each rank it reaches adds a fresh batch of offers on top of the ones below it. The experience gates are fixed: the Novice tier opens immediately with 4 offers, 10 more trade-XP points unlock Apprentice (3 offers), 60 more trade-XP points unlock Journeyman (2 offers), 80 more trade-XP points unlock Expert (1 offer), and 100 more trade-XP points unlock Master (6 offers). The full price list for every rank is laid out below; emerald costs marked as a range roll randomly within that band each time the trade is generated or restocked.
Tier 1 · Novice
4 trades · available from the startSell to villager: 20 strings for 1 emerald, 10 coals for 1 emerald, and 6 raw cods for 6 emeralds.
Buy from villager: bucket of cod for 3 emeralds.
Tier 2 · Apprentice
3 trades · 10 cumulative XPSell to villager: 15 raw cods for 1 emerald and 6 raw salmons for 6 emeralds.
Buy from villager: campfire for 2 emeralds.
Tier 3 · Journeyman
2 trades · 70 cumulative XPSell to villager: 13 raw salmons for 1 emerald.
Buy from villager: enchanted fishing rod for 8-22 emeralds.
Tier 4 · Expert
1 trade · 150 cumulative XPSell to villager: 6 tropical fishs for 1 emerald.
Tier 5 · Master
6 trades · 250 cumulative XPSell to villager: 4 pufferfishs for 1 emerald, 1 oak boat for 1 emerald, 1 spruce boat for 1 emerald, 1 jungle boat for 1 emerald, 1 acacia boat for 1 emerald, and 1 dark oak boat for 1 emerald.
Fisherman trading tips
- Fastest emerald income: stockpile oak boat and sell it in stacks of 1. This Fisherman buy slot can be used 12 times before it locks, so a single villager returns up to 12 emeralds per cycle before you must wait for it to work its barrel and restock (which it does up to 2 times a day).
- Best-value purchase: the cheapest thing this villager sells is campfire for 2 emeralds at the Apprentice tier, a reliable sink for spare emeralds.
- The big one comes early: the priciest thing this villager sells is enchanted fishing rod for 8-22 emeralds, at Journeyman, so you can spend on it long before Master; the tiers above it buy variety, not a better version of that trade.
- Re-roll the enchantment: the enchanted gear this villager offers is rolled randomly. Until you complete a single trade with it the offers stay unlocked, so you can break and replace the barrel on an unemployed, never-traded villager to reshuffle what it sells. Browse every possible enchantment at enchantments.astroworldmc.com.
- Cure for permanent discounts: let a zombie infect this Fisherman on Hard difficulty (guaranteed), trap it safely, hit it with a Splash Potion of Weakness, then feed it a Golden Apple. After the 3-5 minute cure every price drops sharply, often to a single emerald even for its priciest goods. See the full method in our zombie-villager discount guide.
- Leveling up: trading is the only way a Fisherman earns career XP. It needs 10 XP to leave Novice, 70 to reach Journeyman, 150 for Expert, and 250 for Master; a green badge becomes a gold one as it ranks up. The villager must be able to reach its barrel to restock and gain XP. Bedrock asks for the same four numbers: they are written into its own trade table, tier by tier.
- Locking and resetting: the very first completed trade locks this villager's offers for good. If you want to reset them, do it while it is still Novice and untraded, remove the barrel so it forgets the job, then give it back to generate a new Novice list. Our villager rolling guide walks through it.