Animal Crossing: New Horizons - How to transfer residents from one island to another

The brand-new Resident Move feature in Animal Crossing: New Horizons allows you to transfer a single islander, as well as name, appearance, equipment, inventory, home, and storage to another Nintendo Switch console.

If you have multiple people playing on one island and you want to move any islanders that aren't the resident representative, you can use this feature. However, you cannot transfer the island resident representative with the Resident Move feature. To do so, you need to use the Entire Island Transfer Feature.

• Read more: How to download custom designs in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

The Resident Move feature is useful for you, if:

• You want to move a character from an existing switch to another island

• You want to move your secondary player that is not an island representative.

How to transfer residents in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

What you need to make sure of before executing the Resident Move:

• You must have access to both the original system and the new system to use this feature and launch Animal Crossing: New Horizons on both consoles.

And here’s how to transfer your game to another Switch console using the Entire Island Transfer feature.

• Make sure your Animal Crossing is updated to Ver. 1.6.0 (Released November 19, 2020)
• Open the Setting menu by pressing the minus button in the title screen in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

(Photo: Nintendo)

• Select Move to a new island.

(Photo: Nintendo)

Remember that if you are currently the island representative, it is not possible to move yourself to another island. The only way to transfer the island representative is by using the Entire Island Transfer feature. Check our guide for that.

• If you are the island representative and couldn’t be transferred, Tom Nook will ask if you want to move another resident instead. To move another resident, select Move another resident.

(Photo: Nintendo)

• Choose the resident that you would like to move. Then select Yes, that is correct. 

(Photo: Nintendo)

• On the target system, launch Animal Crossing: New Horizons using the user that you transferred. Select Start the process to search for the transfer request sent from the source system. 
• On the source system, select Let’s do it! to confirm the target Nintendo Switch you will be moving to. At this point, the transfer cannot be canceled.

After the message “Thank you so much for being patient. Everything is ready!” is displayed, you can close the game on the source system.

This character will then be transferred to the new Switch system. If the new Switch doesn’t already have Animal Crossing save data yet, the character will become the first resident on a new island when it starts playing.