How to Make a Nether Portal in Minecraft With 10 Obsidian

A Nether portal is a rectangle of obsidian standing upright, at least 4 blocks wide and 5 tall counting the frame, lit with fire. The minimum frame uses 10 obsidian if you skip the four corners, or 14 with them. Light the inside with flint and steel (or a fire charge) and the purple portal fills it.

Building the standard portal

1. Place 4 obsidian in a row on the ground.
2. Stack 3 obsidian on top of each end block of that row.
3. Lay 4 obsidian across the top, joining the two columns.
4. Use flint and steel on the inside bottom of the frame.

To save four obsidian, skip the corner blocks. You’ll need a temporary dirt or cobblestone block to place the side columns against; break it once the frame is done. Either way, the frame leaves an opening 2 blocks wide and 3 tall, the smallest that works. You can build bigger, up to a 23 by 23 frame, and the portal fills whatever opening you make as long as the frame is a full rectangle. The fire has to be lit after the frame is complete; fire placed early won’t activate it when the last block goes in.

You need a diamond or netherite pickaxe to mine obsidian. If you don’t have one yet, use the method below. Our obsidian guide covers where to find lava pools and ruined portals with obsidian ready to take.

No diamond pickaxe: the bucket method

You don’t need to mine obsidian if you make it where it stands.

1. Find a lava pool and bring a water bucket and an empty bucket (or several).
2. Build a mold out of dirt or cobblestone in the portal’s shape, with a shelf for each frame block.
3. Scoop a lava source and pour it into one frame position.
4. Pour water so it flows over the lava; the source turns to obsidian. Pick the water back up.
5. Repeat for each block, then remove the mold and light it.

It’s slow, but it works on day one. Ruined portals are a shortcut: they come with a damaged frame and a chest that often has obsidian and flint and steel.

Lighting it

Flint and steel is the usual tool (recipe here). A fire charge from a dispenser or your hand works too, and so does any fire that spreads into the frame, such as from lava next to flammable blocks.

Linking portals properly

The Nether is scaled 8 to 1: move one block in the Nether and you’ve moved eight in the Overworld. When you go through, the game looks for an existing portal near the matching coordinates. In Java it searches 128 blocks around the spot in the Overworld but only 16 around it in the Nether; in Bedrock it searches 128 in both. If it finds nothing, it builds a new portal, adding a small obsidian platform if it would be in the air or inside rock.

That’s why portals end up linked to the wrong place. To fix it, take your Overworld X and Z, divide both by 8, go to those coordinates in the Nether and build the return portal there. This trick is also the basis of Nether highways: a long tunnel or an ice boat road covers huge Overworld distances fast.

Before you step through

Bring food, a stack of blocks, a pickaxe and armor, and wear at least one piece of gold so piglins don’t attack on sight. Your first goals are usually a Nether fortress for blaze rods or a bastion for loot. In Java, zombified piglins sometimes spawn at Overworld portals, so don’t build your bed right next to one.