Valheim: How to Make and Use the Cart

Your Viking can only haul so much before the screen turns grey and the walk home becomes a crawl. Ore and metal bars are the worst offenders, because they cannot go through a Portal at all. The Cart solves that problem with 18 extra slots on wheels, and it costs almost nothing once you have reached Bronze.

Quick answer: Craft 10 Bronze Nails at a Forge, gather 20 Wood, then equip your Hammer near a Workbench and place the Cart from the Misc tab.

Valheim gameplay view of the open world a cart has to be hauled across — The terrain you will be dragging a loaded Cart across. Image: Iron Gate Studio

Cart requirements in Valheim

The recipe does not exist in your Hammer menu from the start. It unlocks the moment you discover Bronze Nails, which means you need to reach the Black Forest, mine Tin and Copper, and smelt a Bronze bar before the Cart is even an option.

Requirement	Detail
Unlock	Discover Bronze nails
Materials	Wood x20, Bronze nails x10
Station	Workbench in range
Tool	Hammer, Misc tab

Both materials fit in two inventory slots and both can travel through a Portal, so there is no reason to build the Cart at home and drag it out. Carry the parts to wherever you are mining, drop a Workbench, and build it on the spot.

How to build the Cart

Mine Copper and Tin in the Black Forest and smelt them into a Bronze bar at a Smelter. Keep a stock of coal on hand, since the Smelter will not run without fuel.

Take the Bronze bar to a Forge and craft Bronze Nails. A single bar produces 20 nails, which is double what one Cart needs.

Crafting Bronze Nails at a Forge in Valheim, showing a batch of 20 nails — Bronze Nails being made at the Forge, where one Bronze bar yields 20. Image: Iron Gate Studio

Chop 20 regular Wood. Fine wood and core wood do not count here, so ordinary trees in the Meadows are all you need.

Stand inside the build radius of a Workbench, equip the Hammer, and open the Misc tab. Select the Cart, aim at flat ground and place it.

Valheim crafting menu at a Workbench with an item highlighted and the Craft button available — The Workbench crafting menu, where recipes appear once you have discovered the right material. Image: Iron Gate Studio

If the Cart is missing from the Misc tab, you have not crafted Bronze Nails yet. Making a single batch is enough to reveal it permanently.

Loading the Cart’s 18 storage slots

Walk to the back of the Cart, aim at the bed and press the interact key to open its inventory. The grid is six columns by three rows, the same 18 slots you get on a Longship.

Move ore, bars and anything else heavy across from your backpack. As items go in, wooden cargo boxes appear on the Cart, which is the visual confirmation that the transfer worked.

There is no weight cap on the container itself, so you can pile it high. Every stack still counts toward how hard the thing is to move, which is the real limit.

How to pull and detach the Cart

Move to the front of the Cart and position yourself between the two drawbars. Aim at them and press interact. A rope tethers the Cart to your character and it will follow you from then on.

Player pulling a loaded wooden cart across the Meadows biome in Valheim — Attached to the drawbars and hauling the Cart through the Meadows. Image: Iron Gate Studio

Keep moving. Sprinting while attached does not burn any extra stamina, so there is no penalty for jogging the flat stretches.

Press interact again to let go, or dodge to break away instantly. Dodge forwards rather than sideways, otherwise you risk knocking the Cart over.

You can swing a weapon or fire a bow while still attached, though your movement is noticeably stiffer. Against anything serious, unhook first and fight in the open.

Cart being hauled along a grassy path toward a wooden shelter in Valheim — Bringing a loaded Cart back along a cleared path to base. Image: Iron Gate Studio

Weight, hills and terrain that slow the Cart down

Two things decide how painful a trip is, the total weight inside and the steepness of the ground. Load it heavily enough and going uphill becomes impossible, with your character simply refusing to move forward.

The Cart obeys physics. Release it on a slope and it will roll away downhill, and at speed it can slam into things. Impacts deal and take up to 20 blunt damage, scaling with how fast the Cart is going between roughly 3 m/s and 5 m/s, checked twice a second. Players and fish are ignored by that collision.

Tip: For routes you use often, flatten a path with the Hoe. Level ground removes most of the stamina drain and most of the rock collisions in one go.

The Cart can also be pulled while swimming, and in co-op there is a workaround for the weight penalty. A second player sitting on top of the Cart can carry the heavy items in their own inventory while over-encumbered, leaving the Cart itself light.

Cart durability, repairs and what happens when it breaks

With 500 durability the Cart takes a fair beating, but it is a structure like any other. Rain wears it down, enemies will attack it if they can reach it, and rough terrain chips away at it over time.

Property	Value
Durability	500
Storage	18 slots (6 x 3)
Footprint	4 x 2
Damaged by rain	Yes
Weight limit	None, but pulling gets harder
Deconstruct for resources	Not possible

Repairs work exactly like buildings. Stand near a Workbench with the Hammer equipped, aim at the Cart and left click to bring it back to full health. Note that you cannot dismantle it to recover the Wood and nails, so a Cart you no longer want has to be destroyed by damage.

Damage type matters more than you might expect if a raid reaches your Cart.

Damage type	Multiplier
Fire	x1.5
Blunt, Slash, Chop, Pickaxe, Lightning	x1
Frost, Pierce	x0.5
Poison, Spirit	x0

If it does break, the contents spill out as crates on the ground and you can interact with each one to recover your goods. Those crates only have 50 durability and are vulnerable to blunt, slash, pierce, fire and lightning, so retrieve them quickly. Fragile quest items such as Dragon Eggs can be lost if a container is destroyed.

When to use a Portal instead of the Cart

Hauling is slow and expensive in stamina, so reserve the Cart for the cargo that has no alternative. Ore and metal bars cannot be teleported, which is exactly why the Cart exists. Wood, stone, hides and most other materials go through a Portal instantly and should never be dragged overland.

One structural limit is worth knowing before you plan a coastal run. You cannot build a Cart on top of a ship, though a Cart that ends up on a boat deck by other means will still work as extra storage while you sail.

Parked at base, a Cart doubles as a mobile chest for a wood or stone farming session, letting you strip a patch of forest without walking back and forth. That is often where it earns its keep just as much as the long metal runs.