How to Kick Out Villagers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Are you getting tired of seeing the same faces on your Animal Crossing island? Below, we've put together a guide on how to kick out villagers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

How to Kick Out Villagers in ACNH

There are a few different methods to kicking out villagers in ACNH. For the most part, these involve quite a bit of waiting—which can be circumvented via time travel, of course. Below, we've broken down each method into its own subheading.

What Doesn't Affect Villagers Moving Out in ACNH?

According to player reports, the typical methods of bullying villagers by pushing them around, hitting them with nets, and tricking them into pitfalls doesn't encourage them to move out on its own. It may make them angry for a few moments, but ACNH is different from others in the franchise in that it doesn't outright begrudge players for "acting out."

These acts will decrease friendship, however, which may have an effect on how willing villagers are to part with the island in the first place.

Reporting villagers to Isabelle won't affect their willingness to leave the island either as this feature is primarily to help keep the island clean and free from unwanted bugs, interactions, catchphrases, and the like.

Moving Villagers Out the Old-Fashioned Way

It should be noted that the sign for villagers looking to move out is the appearance of a thought bubble above their heads. Players should be checking for this throughout the process.

Villagers will move out on their own free will if given enough time. Previously, it has been suggested that isolating that villager will encourage them to move out quicker as it keeps their bond with the player low. For this reason, time travel is also a reasonable option.

The cycle for villagers wishing to move out spans about two weeks with a new villager being potentially on the chopping block at the end of each cycle. This means that players have a chance to move out a villager every two weeks—or, if they time travel, they only need to fast forward 15 days.

The villager to move out is randomly selected at the start of Day 15 while the game is initializing Isabelle's 5 a.m. morning broadcast. If the right villager has the bubble over their head, speak to them and encourage them—or, rather, do not dissuade them—to leave the island. If they don't have a bubble, either wait another few weeks or move the clock back to the minutes before Isabelle's broadcast and check again.

Doing this will leave a vacant plot behind.

Using a Camper to Move Villagers Out

Players will need their campsite built and, potentially, their desired villager as an amiibo. If in possession of the latter, it can be used to invite that villager to the campsite via the Nook Terminal in the Resident Services building.

Once there's a villager at the campsite, players will need to talk to that camper for three days and potentially win a game with them to convince them to move in. The camper will choose an existing villager to replace at random—which they will tell the player. If they pick the "wrong" villager, players can reset the game and restart the conversation until they pick the "right" one.

This will not vacate the property, of course. It simply replaces one villager with another one.

Here's hoping you can curate your island to look the exact way you'd like it to be!