Here we will be figuring out which Animal Crossing villager is the absolute rarest to have on your island, stick around to the end of the guide to find out who is the rarest villager in New Horizons.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Villager Rarity In Different Villager Hunting Ways

While it seems no one can agree on just how many villagers there are, most Animal Crossing websites out there say there are 397 villagers total including the eight new villagers introduced into New Horizons and the six villagers from the Sanrio collaboration. When it comes to the rarity of villagers, there are a few different ways we can look at it depending on which method of villager acquisition you use. In this guide, we'll go over the rarity of villager hunting, amiibo cards, and empty plot auto-fills, as these are the only ways to get villagers onto your island currently. 

1. Rarity Of Hunting Specific Villager From Mystery Islands

Villager hunting is by far the most popular way to get villagers, but some are harder to get than others using this method. Villager hunting is basically jumping from mystery island to mystery island using nook mile tickets, these islands will populate a random villager if you currently have an empty plot on your island. The way the game randomly generates a villager is by species and then by specific villager. 

Since there are 35 species, there is a 1 in 35 chance any of the species will get selected. Then the game pulls a specific villager within that species, so for example, if you wanted to find blue bear, you would have a 1 in 35 chance to get the bear cup species and then a 1 in 16 chance to pull a specific bear cub. 

If you multiply these numbers together, you have a 1 in 560 chance or a 0.17 chance of finding blue bear on any mystery island at any given time, that's a pretty low chance of finding bluebear or any cub for that matter on a mystery island.

Chance To Hunt Your Specific Villager

This method means that the rarity of the villager depends entirely on how many villagers that species has. If you're looking for a cat villager, there is a 1 in 23 chance to pull a specific cat since there are 23 cats total, multiply that by 1 in 35, and then you only have a 1 in 805 or a 0.12 chance of finding any cat including Raymond; and since these cats are one of the most populist species in the game, finding any specific cat is super rare.

On the other hand, there are only three octopi octopuses in the game: Marina, Octavian and Zucker; this means there's a one in three chance of one of the octopi being selected, multiply that by 1 and 35 and you have a 1 and 105 or 0.95 chance of finding your desired octopi. 

The rarities of villagers differ widely, but you can easily calculate the rarity of the villager you want via villager hunting by looking up how many villagers are in your desired species, then multiplying that number by 35, then simply put a 1 under that number flip it and that is the chance you have of finding your specific villager. If you want to calculate the percentage multiply that number by 100 and don't forget your parentheses. For Example:

23 Cats -> 23 x 35 = 805 -> 1/805 chance to hunt a specific cat villager

Long story short, if you are a villager hunting a species with more villagers like cats and bear cubs is rarer, while species with fewer villagers like octopi are more common and easier to find. If you're concerned your dreamy villager is too hard to obtain with villager hunting, there are two more ways to get villagers.

2. Rarity Of Inviting Villagers To Your Island With Amiibo Cards

Amiibo cards are by far another popular choice for getting your dreamy villagers, which are trading cards released in 2015 that contain an NFC chip that carries the data of a specific villager. You can then scan the amiibo card into your New Horizons game via the kiosk and resident services and then they will appear at your campsite. After you do this process, three times the villager will ask to move on to your island.

Amiibo cards series 1 through 4, each contained 100 cards with 83 being regular villagers and 17 being special characters. Series 5 amiibo cards were introduced a few years later and include 50 more villagers. Since special characters cannot move in we will only be looking at the regular villagers, this means there are 382 regular villager amiibo cards that allow you to move in villagers virtually instantly without the need to filter hunt which can take hours. 

Amiibo cards unfortunately do not services for the eight new villagers that were introduced in New Horizons including Raymond, Judy, Adi, Sherb, Dom, Sid, Renee and Megan. While we did get restocks of series one through four amiibo cards, there was no sight of any new villagers included in these packs, this means the only way to get those villagers is to villager hunt which again can take a long time. But there are rumors that new amiibo cards will be released that include these 8 new villagers. 

Chance To Get Your Specific Amiibo Villagers

But until we get confirmation of additional amiibo cards, we can only discuss the rarity of villagers we already have amiibo cards of. In North America, amiibo card packs came with 6 cards each including one special character card guaranteed. Other than that, it was completely random which villagers would be included in your packs. However, this means species that contain more villagers in theory have a higher chance of being found in a pack, since there are simply more of them to be found and species that have less villagers have a lower chance of being found in a pack, because there are less of them. This formula is basically the opposite of how villager hunting works:

For example, since there are 23 catfilters, you have a higher chance of finding a cat amiibo in your card pack, the math works like so: 

1/5 (since there are five normal villagers per amiibo card pack) x 23/382 (23 cat villagers and 382 villagers we can choose from) = 23/1910 chance or 1.2% chance to of finding any cat in an amiino pack

Let's calculate the same percentage for octopi villagers:

1/5 x 3/382 = 3/1910 chance or 0.157% chance

This means the chance of finding an octopis or any villager that belongs to a small species has a much smaller chance of being found in an amiibo card pack than a villager that belongs to a large species such as a cat or bear cub. 

Long story short, if you're looking for a specific villager when you buy sealed amiibo card packs from the store species with more villagers like cats and bear cubs are more common, while species with fewer villagers like octopi are much harder to find. 

We just had a reprint of amiibo cards but they are sold out almost everywhere and again very hard to come by. So until we get a reprint of amiibo cards or you're willing to shell out some serious dough for new amiibo card packs, you won't really have to worry about amiibo card villager rarities. If there is a specific villager you want you are better off just buying the individual card whether authentic from eBay are homemade from Etsy. 

3. Rarity Of Getting Sanrio Villagers By Scanning New Amiibo Cards

But there is one set of amiibo cards we have not yet talked about the sanrio villagers these 6 adorable villagers: Chai, Etois, Toby, Marty, Chelsea and Rila were introduced in 2016 as amiibo cards and only available in Japan. They were able to be scanned into Animal Crossing New Leaf and move into your town, and players were able to get all of their Animal Crosing furniture items pictured on their amiibo cards. Homemade versions of these cards were easy to come by. So many players outside of Japan were able to get these villagers as well earlier in 2021, it was announced that sanrio amiibo cards were going to be reprinted and released in North America for the first time, as well as in Europe, many fans rejoiced as we were finally able to get these cuties onto our New Horizons islands. 

Chance To Get Specific Sanrio Villager

However, these cards sold out in minutes, their release at target was a mess, leading to scalpers getting their hands on more than the two pack limit and many fans out of luck. For those who were lucky enough to get the cards, it was devastating when we found out the villagers were not adoptable meaning a player with the sanrio cards could not scan in the villager then get them to move out then give them to another player, the villagers would simply disappear into the void.

This knowledge combined with the almost instantaneous sell of these cards means the sanrio villagers are some of the hardest villagers to get in New Horizons by far, since you can't get them via villager hunting, if you can't get your hands on the cards, you're out of luck.

Fortunately for players, the NFC information on the cards can be easily duplicated and put into homemade versions, leading to the creation of the homemade sanrio card boom on various online shopping platforms. So if you're willing to pay the sanrio villagers and any villager for that matter that has an amiibo card are easy to get, but if it wasn't for these homemade options, the sanrio villagers would be near to impossible to get onto your island.

4. Rarity of Getting Specific Villagers With Dreaded Autofill

There is one more way to get villagers in New Horizons and that is with the dreaded autofill. 

If a villager moves off your island and you don't do anything to fill the spot, the game will automatically fill the plot, this means any villager excluding the villagers currently living on your island and the sanrio villagers could move on to your island.

Chance To Get Your Specific Villager With Dreaded Autofill

If we take the total number of villagers and subtract 6 for the 6 Sanrio villagers since you can only get them with amiibo cards, then subtract 9 to services for the current villagers on your island, assuming you have a full island before the empty plot, then there are 382 potential villagers that can move onto your island a 1 in 382 chance or 0.26 chance of getting a specific villager: 

397 - 6 - 9 = 382 -> 1/382 or 0.26% chance

The chance is pretty low but with this method, you are guaranteed to get a villager, you just have no power to choose whatsoever, which is probably why many players dread the autofill because there is a high chance you will get an ugly villager.

After all that math you probably just want to know which villager is the rarest in the game - it is Raymond, not only because he is a cat which means you only have a 0.12 chance of finding him on a mystery island, he also does not have an amiibo card so you can't just go out and buy him and scan him in, the only way to get Raymond is through villager hunting.