In contrast to vertebrate cells, which dismantle their nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) during mitosis, there has been a strong interest in whether budding yeast might directly inherit NPCs during their closed cell division. Two groups now cement this, finding that NPC inheritance is driven by the nucleoporin Nsp1 that allows NPC uptake in daughter cells. Makio et al. show that NPC movement into daughter cells is disrupted when Nsp1 is depleted and that this requirement extends to the nucleoporins that Nsp1 interacts with. If this nucleoporin subcomplex is lacking, NPCs remain in the mother cell. Colombi et al. use a labelling technique to track both new and old nucleoporins during time-lapse analysis of dividing yeast cells and observe that newly synthesized Nsp1 accumulates in the daughter cell specifically, whereas other nucleoporins are distributed between both cells. They also show that a cytoplasmic pool of Nsp1 (and its interacting nucleoporins) are important for NPC inheritance by daughter cells. Together, these studies indicate that Nsp1 may promote access of NPCs to daughter cells.