How to upgrade Nook’s Cranny in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ main store on Switch, Nook’s Cranny, is upgradable.

At first, Tom Nook’s nephews will be selling their wares out of the Resident Services tent. After upgrading your tent to a house, Timmy and Tommy will also ask for 30 of each wood type — Hardwood, Softwood, and Wood — as well as 30 Iron Nuggets to build the initial Nook’s Cranny.

Requirements to upgrade Nook’s Cranny

Update (Apr. 20) - We have upgraded the below requirements based on the data mining done by Twitter user Ninji. While we’re still hoping to confirm these variables, the triggers below are most in line with our gameplay experiences and have a high probability of success.

Triggers for the store upgrade:

• At least 30 days since the Nook’s Cranny building finished construction
• 200,000 Bells in transactions Nook’s Cranny (including buying and selling combined)
• Mabel must visit your town. Unclear if the Able Sisters store must be built, but by this point in the game this is an easy milestone to reach.

The upgraded store has a wider selection, carrying tools that have cosmetic designs like polka dots, though they aren’t more durable than normal tools. The new store will also have more expensive furnishings, some of which cost hundreds of thousands of Bells.

We’re unsure if Nook’s Cranny is upgradable beyond what we’ve seen above. Based on past Animal Crossing games, the store usually has three total upgrades, eventually transforming into a department store. We’ll update this guide when we find out more information.

Update (April 2): We’ve added more information on requirements that may be needed to upgrade the store.

Update (April 3): After a handful of user reports saying that the store was still not unlocking after reaching the above requirements, we are still not confident as to the triggers that result in the store upgrading. We’ve updated the above post with speculations on what causes it, but there may be some randomness tied to it that we can’t account for.

Update (April 20): The latest unlock requirements according to data mining, have been added.

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