Port forwarding for a Minecraft Bedrock server
Bedrock needs a single UDP port: 19132, or whatever server-port says. If some of your players reach you over IPv6, add 19133 as well. There is no TCP at all and no remote console port to worry about.
Your setup
Choose the firmware family rather than your exact model — every router in a family shares the same menus.
Out of the box it is 19132. If you changed that, use whatever you set in server-port (server.properties).
The local address of the computer that runs the server. Find it with ipconfig on Windows or ip addr on Linux; it will begin with 192.168, 10. or 172.
Open these
Your firmware takes ranges, so each line here is one rule.
- 19132 UDP
19132UDPBedrock (IPv4)Every Bedrock client connects here, over UDP. A TCP rule on 19132 does nothing.
Only if you want them
The server runs fine without these. Each open port is one more door for strangers to try, so leave out what you do not need.
- 19133 UDP
19133UDPBedrock (IPv6)server-portv6. Only matters if players reach you over IPv6; most home setups can skip it.
Do not open these
Good news: this game has no remote-admin port that could be exposed by mistake. Forward the ports on the left and stop there.
Step by step: your router
- 1
Give the server a fixed local IP
A forwarding rule targets a single local address. If the server comes back from a reboot with a new one, the rule quietly points at an empty address — which is how forwards seem to "break by themselves".
On this router:look for DHCP Reservation, Address Reservation, Static Lease or Manually Assigned IP
- 2
Open the router admin page
From a device on the same network, open one of these in a browser:
- 192.168.0.1
- 192.168.1.1
- 192.168.2.1
- 10.0.0.1
Almost always printed on a sticker on the router itself.
- 3
Find the port forwarding page
Port Forwarding, Virtual Server, NAT, Applications & Gaming, or Port Mapping
Vendors use at least six names for the same feature. Whatever it is called, the page you want is the one asking for a port, a protocol and a device on your network. If the external and internal port fields both exist, set them to the same number.
- 4
Create one rule per line
a description field, if there is one External / WAN / Public / Service port Internal / LAN / Private port Protocol Internal IP / Device / Server IP Minecraft Bedrock 19132 19132 UDP your server’s local IP Use the same number for the external and internal port. You can make the external one different, but then every player has to connect on that new number, so keep them identical unless you have a specific reason not to.
- 5
Let the server through its own firewall
The router is now sending traffic to the right computer, but that computer can still turn it away. Windows Defender Firewall is the usual offender: it blocks a newly installed dedicated server by default, and from outside that is indistinguishable from a broken forward.
Take it with you
Minecraft Bedrock — port forwarding rules ----------------------------------------- 19132 UDP -> <server local IP>
Check whether it worked
Always test from outside your network. A connection from another device in the house proves nothing: that traffic stays on your LAN and never passes through the rule you just created.
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The usual mistake
Consoles are the catch. Players on Xbox, PlayStation and Switch have no button for adding a server by address — only the featured servers are listed — so a perfectly forwarded server can still be unreachable for them. Phones, tablets and Windows can add it directly. Java players cannot join a Bedrock server at all unless you run a translation layer such as Geyser in front of a Java server instead.
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Skipping port forwarding
Realms, Microsoft's own hosting, avoids forwarding and works on consoles, but is small and fixed. A hosted server behaves like the one you run yourself — same server.properties, same add-ons — without opening your home router.