Animal Crossing 5-Star Island Rating Guide

How do you get a 5 Star Island Rating in Animal Crossing: New Horizons? This is one of your end games Goals after you have completed Project K which requires a 3-star rating. Achieving the highest rating in the island unlocks the Gold Watering Can, as well as new Flowers. In this guide, we’ll provide you with tips on how to achieve this:

Always check with Isabelle first

Check with Isabelle and look at the Island’s current evaluation so you’ll know where you are standing. Isabelle will provide you with tips on what you need to do as your priority.

Have the Maximum number of residents

You can have a total of 10 Villagers living on your island. You need to make sure that all houses on your island have tenants. This ensures your rating, you should have achieved this already if you have completed project K.

Complete all facilities and make sure they are upgraded

In order to have a 5-star island, you’ll need to have all facilities unlocked. You will also need to make sure that you have upgraded Nook’s Cranny.

Keep your island clean

Your rating can be lowered if there are a lot of stuff lying around in your island. This will include tree branches, stones, clumps of weed, and even fossils, fish, and DIY recipes that you leave around the ground. If Isabelle tells you about having too much items, this will mean that you’ll need to pick them up.

Plant trees of every kind

When aiming for the 3-star island rating for Project K, you should be able to achieve this by planting at least 4 trees of each kind of fruit (Apples, Pears, Oranges, Cherries, Peaches) then plant as much Coconut trees around your beaches.

If you remove any of them and have lesser amounts, you might lose an Island rating. Check with Isabelle to see if she’ll ask you to plant fruit trees or not to see if you reached the amount needed.

Plant and grow a lot of flowers

One of Isabelle’s recommendations will be for you to plant as much flowers as you can. There are a variety of 8 flowers and you can grow different kinds of colors. Growing as much as over 200 flowers may be needed. The flowers you grow must have bloomed, and not sprouting. You can check in on Isabelle if you’ll still need more flowers or not.

Place Furniture and Decoration

This part will be the trickiest. Once you reach the decorations part, you should be at a 4-star rating already. This step will involve you to place furniture that you have crafted, furniture acquired through Nook Shopping, and furniture that you have purchased through Nook’s Cranny. A specific number hasn’t been found out yet, but you should aim for the following:

Fences: 200 and above

DIY Furniture: 60 and above

Nook’s Cranny Furniture: 60 and above

Nook Miles Furniture: 20 and above

In total, this will result to over 400 items (fences and Furniture).

Cheap Furniture DIY Suggestions

Here is a list of DIY Furniture that are easy to create. Furniture placement doesn't matter, you just need to make sure they are placed on the island.

Get a final evaluation with Isabelle

Isabelle will tell you that you have completed your tasks if you achieve a 5-star island rating. Take note that once you have done this, it’s possible for your rating to lower if you take away the items that you have placed.

Getting the 5-star rating will give you access to the Golden Watering Can. With this, you can water black roses and breed them into a Gold Rose. A new Flower will also appear on your Island called Lily of the Valley.