Only 2% of People Can Solve Einstein’s Riddle—Can You?

Sajid Karimee
Jun 1
2 min read

Albert Einstein allegedly created this mind-bending logic puzzle in the 20th century, claiming that only 2% of people could solve it without any help. Whether or not that legend is true, the riddle itself has stood the test of time as one of the most famous and challenging logic puzzles ever created.

Think you've got what it takes? Read on to test your brainpower with Einstein’s Riddle.

The Setup

Five houses are painted five different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. These five owners drink different beverages, smoke different brands of cigars, and keep different pets—no two owners have the same pet, smoke the same cigar, or drink the same beverage.

Your task: Who owns the fish?

The Clues

The Brit lives in the red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is immediately to the left of the white house.
The green house’s owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man living in the center house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

How to Solve It

This is a pure logic problem. You won’t need math—just patience and reasoning.

To solve it, you’ll typically need to set up a grid or table with all five houses in order. Then, systematically go through the clues, checking for definite placements and deducing unknowns from relationships between knowns.

You’ll need to keep track of each house's:

Color
Nationality
Beverage
Cigar brand
Pet

Many logic puzzle fans use a matrix or a five-column table to start, filling in facts from the clues and gradually narrowing down each possible option.

The Answer

After working through the clues and cross-checking relationships, here’s the final layout:

House 1: Norwegian, Yellow, Water, Dunhill, Cats
House 2: Dane, Blue, Tea, Blends, Horses
House 3: Brit, Red, Milk, Pall Mall, Birds
House 4: German, Green, Coffee, Prince, Fish
House 5: Swede, White, Beer, Blue Master, Dogs

So, the answer is: The German owns the fish.

Final Thoughts

Einstein's Riddle is more than a test of intelligence—it’s a challenge of patience, focus, and logic. Even if you didn’t solve it on your first try, working through the steps strengthens your problem-solving skills.

Think you can do better? Try crafting your own version of the puzzle—or challenge your friends to solve it faster than you did.

Want more riddles and logic puzzles like this? Stay tuned for more brain-teasing articles on MindMatter!