Sometimes, I look at my Animal Crossing: New Horizons island and think - huh, ten neighbors isn't a lot. I also frequently think, huh, I'm a bit bored with the lineup. This got me wondering… how long would it take to get every villager to move onto an island? The answer is a long time. A very long time.
In total, including 2026's Legend of Zelda and Splatoon villagers, there are 417 characters you can invite to live on your island. That's a darn lot. Since 2020, I've maybe had 20 ACNH villagers move in and out of my main save, but I've been very picky about who I have residing there. In my second save on a different Switch, I've had more as I let them move in and out freely.
So, how long would it take? Let's look at some key facts. Firstly, you can have ten animals on the island at a time. Secondly, as you start your island, you get two villagers (a jock and a big sister) moving in with you. You can then find three more via mystery island tours, which will always be a lazy, normal, and peppy type, and then one will appear at the campsite, whom you have to allow to move in. This villager will always be smug. Four more animals will move in randomly, or you can search for them on more islands.
Third, you can start having residents move out as soon as you have six (or more) living on the island. From then on, someone can request to move out once every 15 days in-game, but the wait can be - and often is - longer.
The easiest - and, let's be real, only - way to get every single villager moved onto your island is to use amiibo cards. Whether that's through the luck of the draw by getting them all in individual packs or picking them up via resale. If you have the card of the animal you want, you can move it in. Simple. What's not so simple is finding the cards and then spending the time using them.
Now for the maths. Here's the sum for how long it would take: [Total villagers] x [how long it takes to move in via card] = [total time]
Some context: it takes five days to move in a villager using an amiibo. Three consecutive days of scanning them in, so it comes to the campsite, one day to move the chosen old resident out, and then one day to move the new one in.
And here are the numbers: 417 x 5 = 2,085 days in total - five years, eight months, two weeks, and three days.
That's the easy answer if you own all the amiibo cards. If you started on any January 1, that would be September 17, five years later. If you'd started doing this on day one of the game's release, in March 2020, you could have done it by now and had a few months to rest afterwards.
If you want to go a more organic route, you may be at this for quite some time. One way to go about it is to grab villagers from other player islands. This would've been more expensive in the heyday of Nookazon, like paying millions of Bells for Raymond the cat, but now it's probably just a bit inconvenient to get them all, as there's nowhere near as many players online. You never know, though, you might get lucky with Nookazon's listings.
Another method is good old villager hunting on Nook Miles islands. You can do this as many times in a day as you want, if you have the tickets, but there's no guarantee of finding any particular character. You can find the same one multiple times, like when I kept bumping into Sheldon the squirrel after he'd moved out. I get it, you love my island.
The final way to get every villager is by letting them organically move in. There are some hiccups with this method. Waiting for every single one of the 417 villagers to move out on their own accord will take a LONG time. As mentioned above, it takes a day for them to pack up, and then another to move out. The plot will then remain empty for a while - but let's say a new animal will claim the plot the next day, then move in the day after. That's four days minimum, if it all goes according to plan.
So that's 417 villagers, taking four days each, with a 15-day break in between. The math: 417 x 19 = 7,923. That's 21 years, nine months, 15 days. That's not including any adjustments for time, such as days that plots stand open, any holidays, or event days when characters may not feel inclined to move around.
Without getting too philosophical about it, there's no real way to guarantee any of these options work, outside of getting access to all the amiibos. Sure, you could get lucky and happen to have every single villager appear on mystery islands, or you could magically find people with the right animals available in boxes, but really, what are the chances? Very, very slim.
If you happen to have 21 years to spare, then by all means, you can get every Animal Crossing villager to move in and out without "cheating" with cards. Maybe the next game in the series will be out by then.