How to Make an End Portal in Minecraft: The Ultimate Guide

Learning how to make an End Portal in Minecraft is crucial to beating the game, as this will lead you to the final boss, the Ender Dragon. However, the process of making one isn’t really the easiest. There’ll be a lot of walking, searching, and slaying of a few Minecraft mobs, but it’ll all be worth it once you get there.

In this guide, we walk you through how to find an End Portal in Survival mode and how to make an End Portal from scratch in Creative mode so that it’s guaranteed to work. Let’s get started!

What Is an End Portal and How Does It Work?

An End Portal is a special structure in Minecraft that gives you access to the End, which is the home of endermen, endermites, and the infamous Ender Dragon. You’ll need two ingredients to make the End Portal: 12 End Portal blocks and 12 Eyes of Ender.

In Survival mode (the default mode of the game), you can’t really make an End Portal from scratch; you’ll need to look for a broken End Portal in the portal room of a Stronghold. When you get there, you will have to set an Eye of Ender on each End Portal block or slot to restore the portal’s functionality. Then, you can just hop in, and you’ll be taken to the End to slay the Ender Dragon.

When you play on Creative mode though, you’ll find that things are much simpler. You’ll still need Eyes of Ender and End Portal blocks to make an End Portal. However, those are readily available in your infinite inventory. The tricky part is just the placement of the blocks and of the Eyes of Ender (we’ll get to that later).

Keep in mind that there’s no turning back to the Overworld once you’re in the End. The only way you can get out is if you beat the dragon or if you get killed trying. Thus, make sure that you’re well equipped to slay the final boss before finding or making an End Portal.

How to Find and Complete an End Portal in a Stronghold

Making an End Portal in Survival mode isn’t just a one-and-done process. It takes some time and a bit of work to even find a Stronghold. And if you’re playing the Bedrock Edition (formerly known as the Pocket Edition, or MCPE), it’s not always a guarantee that a Stronghold contains an End Portal. It sure can be a bit of a challenge, but it isn’t impossible. Below, we give you a step-by-step guide on how you can complete an End Portal in Survival mode:

1. Obtain Ender Pearls

The first thing you need to do to find and complete an End Portal is to get Ender Pearls. These are a requirement to make Eyes of Ender, which you’ll need for two things: finding a Stronghold and completing an End Portal. Here are several ways you can obtain them:

• Look for expert-level clerics and do Minecraft villager trades with them: four or five emeralds for one Ender Pearl. It’s 100% guaranteed that these villagers will trade you an Ender Pearl for a few emeralds if you’re playing the Bedrock Edition. In the Java Edition, however, there’s only a 66% chance that they’ll do so.
• Find and kill Endermen. Take note, though, that you only have a 25% chance of getting Ender Pearls by using this method.
• Offer a gold ingot to a Piglin in the Nether, and it might give you the item you desire. However, there’s only a 1.83% chance that a Piglin will offer you a few Ender Pearls when you give it a gold ingot.

2. Go to the Nether to Obtain Blaze Powder

Once you have enough Ender Pearls, you’ll need Blaze Powder next. You can obtain this by going to the Nether, which you can only access by making a Nether Portal. The process is laid out below:

1. Get 14 Obsidian blocks if you don’t already have them. To do so, you’ll need to find lava, pour water over it, and mine the resulting Obsidian with either a Netherite Pickaxe or a Diamond Pickaxe.
2. Craft either a Fire Charge or Flint and Steel. To craft a Fire Charge, place one unit of blaze powder, a piece of coal or charcoal, and one unit of gunpowder in the 3×3 crafting grid. This yields three units of fire charge. To craft Flint and Steel, place one iron ingot and one flint in the 3×3 crafting grid.
3. Build the Nether Portal frame by doing the following:
   1. Place four Obsidian blocks horizontally.
   2. Place three Obsidian blocks on the first block and another three on the last block.
   3. Connect the two posts by placing four Obsidian blocks on top of them.
4. Activate the Nether Portal by positioning your pointer on one of the bottom Obsidian blocks and using either a fire charge or flint and steel.
5. Once you’ve activated the portal, simply walk or jump through it to access the Nether.

Now that you’re in the Nether, you’ll need to get blaze rods by killing Blazes, which you’ll find in Nether Fortresses. There’s a 50% chance you’ll get a blaze rod every time you kill a Blaze.

Once you’ve obtained enough blaze rods, simply place one in the 3×3 crafting grid, like in the photo below:

Note that one blaze rod yields two units of blaze powder.

3. Craft Eyes of Ender Using Ender Pearls and Blaze Powder

Now, you have both the ingredients you need to craft Eyes of Ender. All you need to do at this point is to place one unit of blaze powder and one Ender Pearl in the crafting grid, as shown in the photo above.

Minecraft doesn’t specify the number of Eyes of Ender that you need to craft. That said, you might want to make around 20 to 30 just so you don’t run out. You might need several Eyes of Ender to find a Stronghold, plus you’ll need a maximum of 12 to complete an End Portal.

There are cases in which players have only used one or two Eyes of Ender to find a Stronghold. However, this doesn’t always happen. Similarly, there’s a possibility that you won’t need 12 Eyes of Ender to complete an End Portal as you might already find it pre-filled. However, there’s only a 10% chance of a portal frame generating with one of the blocks already having an Eye of Ender. You can also find an End Portal frame already completely pre-filled, but the chances of that happening is one in a trillion.

4. Use Eyes of Ender to Find a Stronghold

Once you’ve stocked up on Eyes of Ender, you’ll now use one or several of them to locate the nearest Stronghold. To begin your search, you can go to the point where you first spawned in your world (you can find this by using your compass). Once you’re there, simply throw an Eye of Ender. In Minecraft Pocket Edition, you can do so by tapping anywhere on your screen.

The Eye of Ender will stay in the air for a while and give you the rough direction of the nearest Stronghold by moving a few meters away. Follow it for a few hundred blocks, and then throw another Eye of Ender until you get closer to the Stronghold. It’s worth noting that there’s a one in five chance that an Eye will shatter when you throw it. However, if it doesn’t, pick it up right away so that you can use it again.

You’ll have to throw and follow the Eye of Ender a few times before you can arrive at the Stronghold. After a while, the Eye will start moving in a different direction, which means you’re getting closer to your destination. At this point, you’ll want to throw the Eye of Ender more often to locate the exact point of the Stronghold. You’ll know you’ve found it when the Eye starts travelling towards the ground instead of rising in the air. Throw a final Eye of Ender and watch out for which exact block it lands on. Directly beneath that block is the Stronghold you’re looking for.

5. Dig Through Dirt

Once you’ve determined the specific block that the Eye of Ender landed on, all you need to do now is dig through that block dirt to get to the Stronghold. When you do, make sure to dig through two blocks instead of just one. That way, you don’t fall directly onto lava or hostile mobs, should there be any. It’s also good if you have your best Minecraft armor equipped for it can shield you from hits you fail to avoid.

5. Look for the Broken End Portal in the Stronghold

Finding and getting to the Stronghold is just one part of the journey. Once you’re inside, you still need to look for the portal room that contains the broken End Portal. The Stronghold is built kind of like a labyrinth, so you can get lost in it fairly easily. That said, take note that the portal room is generally less than ten rooms away from where you landed in the Stronghold. A room is usually denoted by a door, a passageway, or a set of stairs.

If you want, you can leave a trail by placing torches or any other marker on one side of the walls. That way, you know which rooms you’ve already passed. If you’ve already passed ten rooms and you still haven’t gotten to the portal room, go back to where you started, and begin your search again by trying another route. Keep in mind as well that you will encounter hostile mobs and silverfish along the way, so you’ll need to be on the lookout for those.

You’ll know you’ve found the portal room when you see a rectangular room with a doorway and three pools of lava. Through the doorway, you should immediately see a short set of stairs, at the top of which sits a monster spawner. You’ll also find the broken End Portal frame beyond that set of stairs.

6. Complete the Broken End Portal

Once you’ve arrived at the portal room, make sure to destroy the monster spawner and to fill in all the pools of lava first. That way, you can eliminate the chances of mishaps resulting from their presence.

Then, go to the top of the stairs where the End Portal frame is. As we previously mentioned, the frame can sometimes be found already pre-filled. However, most of the time, all 12 blocks would be missing the Eyes of Ender. In that case, you’ll have to use the Eyes of Ender that you have left to fill in the missing pegs. Once you do, there will be a booming sound, and the center of the frame will become dark. And voilà! You’ve successfully activated the End Portal. Stepping inside will take you to the End where you’ll meet the Ender Dragon, the game’s final boss.

How to Make an End Portal from Scratch in Creative Mode

Making an End Portal in Creative mode is another, less complicated story. When playing in Creative mode, you don’t have to go through the arduous process of crafting Eyes of Ender, finding a Stronghold, and looking for the End Portal. You can just make an End Portal from scratch using the End Portal blocks and Eyes of Ender that you already have in your inventory. We’ll teach you how below:

1. Choose a place to build your End Portal. You don’t need to make the End Portal in a specific environment. Just make sure that the space is big enough for a 3×3 square to fit around.
2. Open your inventory, and grab your End Portal blocks. You’ll need 12 of these.
3. It’s time to build! First, position yourself in the middle of where you want to make your End Portal. Then, lay down three End Portal blocks next to each another. When you do so, make sure that the marks on either end of the center black square are facing the inside and the outside of the portal. The video above by MCPE Journalist illustrates the correct placement of the End Portal blocks.
4. Turn so that you’re facing the next side of your 3×3 grid. Then, place three more blocks in a straight line. Do this two more times to complete the End Portal frame. Note that all four corners of the grid should be empty.
5. Step out of the middle of the portal frame. Now, place 12 Eyes of Ender on the End Portal — one on each portal block. Once you place the last Eye, you’ll hear a booming sound. The center of the portal will then turn dark (just like in Survival mode). Afterward, you can step into the portal to travel to the End.

Final Thoughts

Being able to make an End Portal can be a lot of work, especially if you’re doing it in Minecraft’s Survival mode. It doesn’t just involve finding an End Portal and completing it with Eyes of Ender — although finding one once you’re inside a Stronghold is a challenging feat in itself. Before you even get to that part, there are two even trickier things you’ll need to accomplish: obtaining the ingredients for making Eyes of Ender and looking for the nearest Stronghold.

That being said, all that effort won’t be useless. In fact, the difficulty of the entire process makes it all the more rewarding when you finally get to activate the End Portal. Not to mention, it’s one step closer to beating the game.

We hope this guide helped you make an End Portal in Minecraft, whether in Survival mode or Creative mode. If you’ve ever attempted to build one, feel free to share your experience with us!