How to Make a Gold Farm in Minecraft

Guide Java Bedrock

Quick answer: A gold farm mass-produces zombified piglins and funnels them to a kill zone for nuggets, ingots and XP. The simple version uses Nether portals (piglins spawn inside portal frames and step out into a trap); the fast version stacks spawn platforms on the Nether roof. Add turtle eggs to lure them and a Looting III sword to multiply the drops.

What you need

Obsidian for portal frames + flint and steel
Turtle eggs (from breeding turtles on beaches)
Magma blocks for roof platforms (optional, big farms)
Looting III sword, hoppers and chests
Building blocks and water buckets

Step by step

Understand the two spawn sources. Zombified piglins spawn naturally in nether wastes (best rates), crimson forests and fortresses - and they also appear inside Nether portal blocks anywhere, because portals sit at exactly light level 11, the maximum they tolerate.
Start with the portal farm. In the Overworld or under the Nether bedrock ceiling, build large portal frames (up to 23x23 inside). Piglins spawn in the frame, wander out or get pushed by water, and fall to your kill zone. Cheap, safe and works from day one.
Lure with turtle eggs. Zombified piglins pathfind toward turtle eggs to crush them. An egg behind a pit or inside the portal area drags every spawned piglin exactly where you want it - no redstone needed.
Kill with Looting III. Manual kills with a Looting III sword multiply gold several times over and award XP when the piglins are angry at you. Hit one and the whole group aggros - shared anger is what makes XP modes work.
Scale to the Nether roof. Above the bedrock ceiling at Y 128+, build magma-block platforms (piglins spawn on magma, most mobs cannot) with an egg in the middle and drop chutes to a killing chamber. This is where the famous high-rate designs live.
Collect everything. Hoppers under the kill zone feed chests; add a simple sorter later so nuggets auto-craft into ingots and rotten flesh gets its own chest.
Know the rates. A basic portal farm is slow but free; larger designs on the Nether roof are much faster, especially with Looting III - pick the size your patience allows.

Java vs Bedrock

Edition choice matters here. Natural-spawning roof farms are best on Java; on Bedrock, portal-based farms win because rapidly flickering portals spawn piglins much faster than natural spawning. Many famous Java designs simply do not work on Bedrock - copy one tagged for your edition.

Versions: Zombified piglins replaced zombie pigmen in the 1.16 Nether Update, keeping the same farm mechanics. One recent caveat: Java 1.21.5 changed anger-based XP drops, so XP rates quoted for older designs may no longer apply - gold rates are unaffected.

Frequently asked questions

Why are no piglins spawning in my portal?

Portal spawning is random-tick based and slow for small frames - a single 4x5 portal produces a trickle. Go bigger (23x23), stack several frames, and on Java make sure you are not in peaceful difficulty. Standing too close also blocks spawns: keep 24+ blocks away.

Gold farm or bastion raiding?

Raiding bastions is faster gold per minute early on, but finite and dangerous. A farm is infinite, safe once built, and doubles as an XP source. Most players raid one bastion for the fun, then build a farm for the supply.

Do zombified piglins drop XP when killed automatically?

XP comes from angered piglins dying, and Java 1.21.5 patched the always-drop-XP behavior for angered piglins, so pure fall-damage or cramming modes no longer guarantee XP. Manual Looting III kills remain the reliable XP method; automatic modes are now mainly for gold.