Money tree

Money trees are a type of tree in the. In, money trees can be planted with the regular or golden shovel by burying money in the daily Glowing Spot located in the player's town. In later games, the player can grow them by burying a bag of money using a golden shovel. If the tree successfully grows and blooms, there will be three bags of the amount of Bells the player planted. However, more than 90,000 Bells can never be obtained; burying more than 30,000 Bells will still result in the tree producing three 30,000 Bell bags. Money trees will bloom, and thus produce money, only once.

The ability to grow money trees can also be a method to replace trees. Players with just 10,000 Bells can plant over 100 trees (using 100 Bell coins) in one day. Though this is slightly more expensive than purchasing saplings from Tom Nook, it is much quicker.

Money tree probability
A tree's likelihood of blooming is based on the amount of Bells buried. The maximum number of Bells a tree will produce is 90,000 Bells, so burying more than 90,000 Bells wastes Bells. Despite the potential profit, money trees are not statistically profitable, having the player lose money on the long run because the expected return will never exceed the amount invested.

A 4-leaf-clover planted underneath the money tree does not affect the probability of the tree blooming and producing money, nor does watering it with a Golden Watering Can.

In New Horizons, it appears that money trees will always bloom based on the value that was planted, however, burying more than 10,000 bells risks the loss of profits, as trees often cap at a 30,000 bell return.