Here's how to cure a zombie villager: hit it with Weakness, then use a regular golden apple on it. It shudders, throws off red particles, and turns back into a villager after a random 3,600–6,000 ticks (3–5 minutes). The apple must be the plain one: the Minecraft Wiki notes the enchanted golden apple doesn't work. Everything here is current as of Java 26.3.
The rest is logistics: getting a Weakness source, keeping the zombie villager out of the sun, and not wasting the apple. If you want a zombie villager for cheap trades, this is the whole job. Sources throughout are the Minecraft Wiki's Zombie Villager page and its curing tutorial.
What you need
- A way to inflict Weakness. The wiki's list: a splash potion, a lingering potion, an arrow of Weakness, or a witch's splash potion. Creepers inflicted with Weakness leave an area effect cloud (Java only), and the
/effectcommand works with cheats. The wiki doesn't list drinking the potion yourself as a method, so use a thrown or shot one. - One golden apple (not enchanted), held in the hotbar slot next to your Weakness item.
- Roof blocks to shade the zombie villager.
Brewing splash Weakness
In a brewing stand, brew 1–3 water bottles with a fermented spider eye, using blaze powder as fuel. Craft the eye from a spider eye, a brown mushroom and sugar. Add gunpowder to make the potion splash; dragon's breath makes it lingering. A brewing stand is crafted from a blaze rod and cobblestone, or found in igloo basements, end ships and village cleric houses. Splash Weakness can also turn up in igloo brewing stands, and Weakness potions in trial chambers.
Making the golden apple
Craft one from 8 gold ingots and 1 apple at a crafting table. Golden apples also generate in chests: stronghold altars, large ocean ruins, dungeons, desert pyramids, mineshafts, woodland mansions, igloos, ruined portals and ancient city centres.
How to cure a zombie villager, step by step
- Prepare. The wiki's tutorial suggests taking off Thorns armor, putting away healing potions, keeping a high-durability shield in your offhand, and sitting tamed wolves or moving iron golems away from the target.
- Trap it. Enclose it with a roof of opaque blocks so it doesn't burn at sunrise. Zombie villagers burn in daylight.
- Apply Weakness. Gray swirl particles mean it worked. The wiki lists no level requirement, so any Weakness counts.
- Use the golden apple on it. It begins to shudder and emits red particles. Weakness is replaced by Strength for the duration of the cure.
- Wait, and don't attack it. Stay nearby; see the timing section for what happens if you leave.
Curing zombie villagers gain Strength, and that doesn't depend on difficulty, so keep your distance from a curing one in the open.
How long does it take to cure a zombie villager?
A random 3,600–6,000 ticks, or 180–300 seconds. The wiki gives that one range without splitting it by edition, so we don't claim a different Bedrock time.
Can you speed it up?
Barely. Every tick there's a 1% chance the game looks at the 9×9×9 cube around the villager for iron bars and beds (each half of a bed counts, copper bars don't). Each one found, up to 14, has a 30% chance of shaving one tick off the countdown. With the full 14 in range that's about a 4.2% faster cure on average, which is not worth building around. The honest answer to "fastest way" is to have everything ready before you apply Weakness.
If you walk away
A mid-cure zombie villager doesn't despawn when you move away, though it does if the difficulty is set to Peaceful. On Bedrock, per the wiki, the timer pauses if you leave range, and saving and reloading finishes the cure as soon as the villager's chunk ticks. Also don't be offline when the cure finishes, or the discount may not register (bug MC-247647, per the tutorial).
Keeping the zombie villager alive
- Daylight: a roof isn't enough on its own. The centre of the zombie villager has to be under it.
- Despawning: a zombie villager that isn't mid-cure and was never traded with can despawn. Start the cure before you leave. Otherwise make it persistent: in Java trap it in a boat, in Bedrock drop an item for it to pick up (both from the tutorial). The wiki also says one that picks up equipment becomes persistent. Zombie villagers from abandoned villages and igloo basements already are.
- Other zombie villagers: a freshly cured villager can be attacked and re-zombified by another zombie villager. Cure one at a time, apart.
- Iron golems: golems spawned by panicking villagers can kill your zombie villager, so keep villagers from seeing it.
How to get a zombie villager
Four routes, all from the wiki:
- Natural spawns: in the Overworld, 5% of zombie spawns are replaced by a zombie villager in Java (on Bedrock it's a 5% chance of a group of 2–4). Old growth pine taiga is highest in Java at 20%.
- Let a zombie kill a villager: in Java, a zombie, husk, drowned, zombie villager or zombified piglin killing a villager converts it with a chance set by difficulty. See the table below. A baby villager becomes a baby zombie villager.
- Igloo basements: a villager and a zombie villager, both behind iron bars. In Java the zombie villager is a cleric.
- Abandoned villages and zombie villages generate them too. Zombie monster spawners do not spawn zombie villagers.
| Difficulty | Chance a killed villager converts |
|---|---|
| Easy | 0% |
| Normal | 50% |
| Hard | 100% |
If you are turning one of your own villagers, keep in mind that on Java a villager killed by a zombie stays persistent only if you had traded with it before conversion.
What the cured villager keeps
If the villager had traded with a player before it was zombified, it comes back with its former profession and trades. If not, it recovers the profession but may switch immediately if it claims a different workstation. A cured villager that had a profession gives the player who cured it a permanent discount in Java. A second cure adds nothing. Babies stay babies. For how discounts fit into a full hall, see our villager trading hall guide; the usual payoff is a cheap librarian, as in getting Mending fast.
Troubleshooting: why isn't it working?
| Problem | Likely cause |
|---|---|
| Apple does nothing | No active Weakness on the zombie villager, or you used an enchanted golden apple. |
| It burned up | No roof, or the roof doesn't cover the zombie's centre. |
| It vanished | Despawned: not mid-cure, never traded with, not persistent. |
| It turned back to a zombie villager | Another zombie villager attacked the cured villager. |
| It died mid-cure | An iron golem (or you) killed it. |
| No discount | It was never zombified with a profession, you were offline at the finish, or this was a repeat cure. |
Java vs Bedrock
The steps are the same. The wiki lists these differences: creeper Weakness clouds are Java only; Bedrock villagers within a 16-block cube also give a small discount scaling with the number cured (up to 10); on Bedrock a former nitwit becomes unemployed and can learn a profession, while Java nitwits stay nitwits; and on Bedrock every converted zombie villager is persistent. The Bedrock reload and timer-pause behaviour is covered above.
Zombie villager FAQ
Do you need Weakness II to cure a zombie villager?
The wiki lists no level requirement, and its tutorial says any method of inflicting Weakness works.
How many golden apples does it take?
One per zombie villager.
Can you cure one without a potion?
You still need Weakness, but not one you brewed. A witch within 3 blocks has a 25% chance of throwing splash Weakness at you if you lack the effect; parched mobs (desert, at night) can drop an arrow of Weakness, though we haven't checked which versions include them; and trial chambers contain Weakness potions.
How many times can you cure a zombie villager?
The wiki lists no limit, but a repeat cure gives no extra discount.
Is there a Zombie Doctor achievement?
Yes: the tutorial notes it for your first cure.
Next up, if you need more villagers to practise on, read how to breed villagers and which job block gives which profession.