Animal Crossing: New Horizons amiibo guide

Animal Crossing: New Horizons supports the amiibo and amiibo cards made for previous games in the franchise. However, their function is fundamentally different. There are a lot of different things you can do with amiibo in this game, depending on how much content you’ve unlocked on your island.

Below we detail which amiibo are compatible with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, including the ones you need to summon crossover characters as part of the 3.0 update.

Update (Jan. 14): We’ve added information about amiibo usage in the Animal Crossing: New Horizons 3.0 update.

What amiibo are compatible with Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

The following amiibo can be used in New Horizons:

• All Animal Crossing series amiibo
• Super Smash Bros. amiibo of Animal Crossing characters (Villager and Isabelle)
• All Animal Crossing amiibo cards
• All The Legend of Zelda series amiibo
• Super Smash Bros. amiibo of The Legend of Zelda characters
• All Splatoon series amiibo

What you can use these for vary, but we’ll get more into that below.

What can you use amiibo for in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

As mentioned above, there’s a ton of different activities for your amiibo-summoned characters in New Horizons. Here’s an overview:

Taking photos with characters

Not too long after you move to your island, a dog named Harvey will appear and roam around. He’ll invite you to fly to his island, Harv’s Island — also known as Photopia, which functions as a photo studio. There, you can scan amiibo and pose them to take silly screenshots with your favorite characters.

After you’ve scanned an amiibo for a photoshoot, you’ll be able to order a poster of the character from Nook Shopping in the Resident Services building back on your island.

Invite amiibo characters to stay at your campsite (and island)

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

After your Campsite opens and your first guest comes to visit you (which might take a day), you’ll be able to use the Nook Stop at Resident Services to invite campers to your campsite. Even if you can scan an amiibo (or card), this doesn’t necessarily mean that the character will show up at your Campsite.

You can’t technically invite NPCs to the Campsite, but they will give you a special message. For example, Isabelle will appear with a message saying she can’t go camping and that she’s standing right in front of you, silly!

Villager amiibo cards scan in and will invite the villager to camp at your Campsite. While the prompt to invite them to your campsite will appear, the villager will decline unless they’ve been invited to camp multiple times. After a few times, they’ll finally accept and move in, as long as you have an open plot.

Invite amiibo characters in for a cup of coffee

After unlocking The Roost, you can invite characters for a cup of coffee using the phone to the left of the cafe. This will just unlock a cute and simple conversation, and some characters may bring along others. For example, if you invite Joan, the old turnip seller, she may bring her protégé, Daisy Mae, with her.

Decorate homes for characters in the Happy Home Paradise DLC

If you have the Happy Home Paradise DLC, you can use the amiibo scanner on Lottie’s desk to bring over specific characters to decorate homes for.

Unlock items with crossover characters

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Scanning the Sanrio crossover amiibo cards will allow you to invite these Sanrio-themed characters to your island, but also unlock respective items for those villagers. For example, scanning the Chai amiibo card will allow you to order Cinnamoroll-themed items.

Added in the 3.0 update, you can now invite villagers based off of Tulin and Mineru from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Shiver and Frye from Splatoon 3 into the game. Additionally, once you scan their amiibo, you can buy special items themed around their respective games from the Nook Shopping app on your phone.

Specific amiibo unlock specific characters, so make sure you’re scanning the correct amiibo to get the character you want: