Invite new villagers and vote others off your Animal Crossing island

In order to have the perfect island, you need to have the perfect villagers.

There are literally hundreds of potential villagers for you to meet while playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons — 402 of them, to be exact. However, you can only have up to 10 villagers living on your island at a time. To help you populate your island with your favorite characters, we've included tips for how to get a villager to move to your island and how to keep them happy while they're there. Of course, if you're just not having it, we also have tips for how to make a villager move out.

• How to recruit new villagers
• How to keep your favorite villagers happy
• How to make villagers move out

How to recruit new villagers

In order to invite new villagers to your island, you will need to have gotten far enough in the game to be able to travel to other islands using a Nook Miles Ticket. That means that at a minimum, you must have been playing for more than one day. If you haven't gotten here yet, don't expect to find new villagers just yet.

Visit other islands

In order to recruit the first three villagers, you'll need to have some Nook Miles Tickets. These can be bought for 2,000 Nook Miles each from the kiosk at Resident Services. Then run to the airport and tell Orville, the dodo behind the counter, that you want to explore another island.

While you're exploring, you might come across a random animal NPC. Talk to them and invite them to live on your island. Then you'll have to wait until Tom Nook asks you to scout out a plot of land for these newcomers (this happens after you've built Nook's Cranny). One of the new villagers you invited will appear on your island the day after you've completed setting up the new housing area.

The campsite

Things change once your island starts getting a bit more established. For instance, after you finally upgrade Resident Services from a tent to a proper building, you'll eventually be able to set up a campsite for traveling villagers. Talk to these guests while they're visiting and you might be able to convince them to stay on the island.

Dust off your amiibo

All of those adorable Animal Crossing amiibo that you either just collected or have had on your shelf for a few years can finally be put to good use.

Once the campsite has been built on your island, run to the Nook Stop kiosk and invite an animal to your campsite. You'll then need to scan your amiibo by hovering it over the joystick on your right Joy-Con. Shortly thereafter, you'll discover that a new camper has appeared on your island.

Preparing land for Resident Services

As your island develops, additional villagers won't be ok with roughing it and will want a nice place to live. As such, when Resident Services is in a proper building, you'll be able to influence your island a whole lot more. Tom Nook will enlist you to help him sell land for housing development. This of course means that you will need to ready the land for your new residents. It'll cost you 10,000 Bells to set up each new plot, but you'll earn 1,000 Nook Miles for your efforts.

How to keep your favorite villagers happy

Now that your villagers are here on the island, they're going to want to feel appreciated and liked. Keep them happy by talking to them every day, occaisionally writing them letters, and fulfilling errands for them. It also helps to remember their birthdays. Don't forget to give them presents they'll enjoy. If you turn your game off for several months or even days, your favorite villagers might pack up and leave, so you'll need to check in regularly.

If a villager starts walking around with a cloud around their head, that means something is troubling them. They might even be considering moving out. If that's the case, make sure you talk to them and convince them to stay.

How to make villagers move out

As you keep playing, you might decide that you really just don't care for one of your animal neighbors or that you're ready for someone new to join your village. If that's the case, here are the steps you need to follow in order to convince a specific villager to leave your island.

1. Zip your lips: Don't talk to this particular villager for several days. Just act as if they don't exist. But don't forget to talk to the other villagers on your island.
2. Personal cloud: Eventually, you'll see this villager walking around with a cloud over its head. This means that they are considering leaving the island. Approach them and initiate a conversation.
3. Tell them to get out of town: The villager will tell you that they've been thinking about leaving. When they ask you if you want them to stay, let them know it's time they moved along.

Survivor

Now that you know how to invite new villagers, maintain relationships with current residents, and kick other villagers off the island you have better control of who your villagers are. I hope you're able to find all of your favorite villagers and that all of your residents are able to get along well together.