Animal Crossing Sanrio Amiibo Cards: How to invite Sanrio villagers and get Sanrio items in New Horizons explained

Everything you need to know about the inclusion of the Sanrio Amiibo Cards.

Guide by Lottie Lynn Guides Editor

Updated on 18 Mar 2021

The Sanrio Amiibo Cards are now compatible with Animal Crossing: New Horizons!

With these six cards, you can invite the Sanrio villagers which have been inspired by popular characters created by Sanrio, such as Hello Kitty, to your island.

Each card will also unlock a set of items inspired by the Sanrio character, allowing you to drastically increase the cuteness factor of your island.

Luckily, the Sanrio Amiibo Cards originally released for the Nintendo 3DS are compatible with New Horizons.

On this page:

Sanrio Amiibo Cards for Animal Crossing explained
Sanrio Amiibo Cards availability explained
How to invite a Sanrio villager to your island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
How to get the Sanrio items in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
List of Sanrio villagers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
List of Sanrio items in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Cover image for YouTube video — Get Ready for a Sanrio Crossover! - Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Nintendo SwitchWatch on YouTube

Sanrio Amiibo Cards for Animal Crossing explained

The Sanrio Amiibo Cards are a set of six Amiibo cards which were originally released in December 2016 for Animal Crossing: New Leaf in a cross promotion with Sanrio - a Japanese company which creates a range of products based around different cute characters.

If you've heard of Hello Kitty, then you've heard of Sanrio.

Each Sanrio Amiibo Card is focused around a specific villager who, in turn, takes inspiration from one of Sanrio's characters, including Pompompurin, Cinnamoroll and Hello Kitty.

With the release of Ver. 1.9.0 of New Horizons, the Sanrio Amiibo Cards, including the ones originally released for Animal Crossing: New Leaf, can now be used to add the Sanrio villagers, and their items, to your island.

Sanrio Amiibo Cards availability in the UK and US explained

Currently, there is no news on when the Sanrio Amiibo Cards will be available in the UK and Europe. Thankfully, if you really want the Sanrio Amiibo cards for your collection, you can import them and these cards will also be compatible with New Horizons.

Animal Crossing fans in the US will, however, be able to purchase the cards exclusively from Target for $5.99 from Friday, 26th March onwards.

How to invite a Sanrio villager to your island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

If you want to invite a Sanrio villager to live on your island in New Horizons, then you need to follow the same steps as when you use a regular Animal Crossing Amiibo Card to invite a villager to your island.

First, choose your card and then, in-game, visit the Nook Stop in Residential Services.

Here you'll be able to scan your chosen Sanrio villager card by using the 'Invite Amiibo Camper' option. This villager will then appear at your campsite and, like with a regular villager, they'll ask for furniture, which, when given to them, will eventually unlock the option to add them to your island community.

Thankfully the Sanrio Amiibo Cards which were originally released for Animal Crossing: New Leaf on the Nintendo 3DS are compatible with New Horizons.

Thank you to johnnyJAG from reddit for help with this information!

How to get the Sanrio items in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Like with the Sanrio villagers, you need to own the Sanrio Amiibo Cards to unlock the Sanrio items in New Horizons. These items include a range of furniture, clothing, wallpaper and flooring.

You can also use the Sanrio Amiibo Cards released for Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

To unlock the Sanrio items, all you have to do is scan your chosen card using the 'Invite Amiibo Camper' option at the Nook Stop in Residential Services.

The items connected to that Sanrio villager will now appear in the Promotion section of Special Goods within Nook Shopping, which can be accessed either through the Nook Stop or your Nook Phone if you've unlocked the app.

Now you can purchase whichever Sanrio item you like - just remember, you can only purchase five items per day from the Nook Shopping app and you will have to wait till the next day for these items to arrive.

The Animal Crossing 2.0 update and Happy Home Paradise is here! We can help you with the new additions - including where to find Brewster, Gyroids, new villagers, ordinances, new fences, storage shed, new hairstyles, Froggy Chair, group stretching and Kapp'n boat tours. Cooking is now unlockable, so you need to know how to make both flour and sugar, as well as how to grow carrots, potatoes and tomatoes. Meanwhile, if you're new to Animal Crossing, our New Horizons tips can help with the basics. From the off, there's fish and bugs to catch, flowers and fruit to grow with. One long term goal is building your Happy Home Academy score. Finally, you need tools such as the new ladder and vaulting pole to fully explore.

List of Sanrio villagers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

There are a total of six Sanrio villagers in New Horizons and, below, you can find their name, species and which Sanrio character inspired them:

Chai - a elephant inspired by Cinnamoroll
Chelsea - a deer inspired by My Melody
Étoile - a sheep inspired by Little Twin Stars

Marty - a cub inspired by Pompompurin
Rilla - a gorilla inspired by Hello Kitty
Toby - a rabbit inspired by Keroppi

List of Sanrio items in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Alongside the villagers, the Sanrio Amiibo Cards will also unlock a set of items, including furniture and clothing, themed around the Sanrio character the villager was inspired by.

Thank you to melobnny from Twitter for the help with this information.

Below we've listed the items in accordance to which villager unlock each set, including which Sanrio character they were inspired by:

Cinnamoroll items - unlocked by scanning Chai's Amiibo Card