Pokemon GO Trading: Costs, Mechanics and Special Trade Rules

Pokemon GO Trading is a new game play feature introduced Pokemon GO (worldwide release: June 22 2018). Trading allows you to exchange Pokemon with Friends, re-roll IVs and complete your Pokedex by finally “catching them all”. Trading is a staple feature in all Pokemon games.

When compared to other Pokemon games, trading in GO works a little bit differently, requiring Stardust to perform trades and introducing a set of restrictions that prevent Pokemon black markets to form.

Trading has been released alongside two additional features worth learning more about: Gifts and Friends.

In this guide:

Trading mechanics and requirements

In order to start a Pokemon GO trade, both players must meet a set of requirements:

• Be friends with the person you’re trading with (any Friendship level works)
• Be within 100m from the person you’re trading with
• Have Trainer Level of 10 or above (both participants)

In order to start trading, you need to find the Trainer in your Friends tab and click on his profile. From there, click the Trade button and wait for the other party to become ready. If both of you meet the above mentioned requirements, you will be placed in the “Trading lobby” where you can select your Pokemon and verify the Stardust required to trade.

Pokemon GO Trading mechanics

There is a few things to keep in mind when trading Pokemon in Pokemon GO:

• Standard trades cost 100 Stardust. A standard trade involves Pokemon that are not shiny, not legendary and which you have already caught.
• IVs, HP and CP change when trading, but moves, gender and size of the traded Pokemon stay the same. Be careful: Pokemon Level can also change!
• A traded Pokemon level will be adjusted to the maximum power up level the recipient can perform. If you try to trade a higher level Pokemon to someone who can’t normally power up to that level, the Pokemon’s level will go down. In other words, you can’t boost someone by passing them a high level Pokemon they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
• You can influence the re-rolled stats by increasing your Friendship level. According to this official blog post, the game assigns minimum stat values based on your Friendship level.
• Trades reward additional Candy, depending on the distance between the locations where the two Pokemon were caught (credits: reddit)
  • 1 Candy => close distance
  • 2 Candy => medium distance
  • 3 Candy => 100 KM distance
• Trading Pokemon affects your older medals:
  • Trading XL Magikarps (>13.13kg) counts towards the Fisherman Medal
  • Trading tiny Rattata (<0.25m) counts towards the Youngster Medal
  • Trading any Pokemon counts towards the appropriate Type medal
• A Pokemon can only be traded once. You can’t chain-trade in order to get perfect IVs, as explained in the official blog post.
• You can’t trade Mythical Pokemon in Pokemon GO in any shape or form. Mythical Pokemon are tied to particular Story quests and all players must experience them.

Pokemon GO Special Trades

Special Trading is a set of trading rules which applies when trading particular types of Pokemon. The following Pokemon types are considered special trades:

• Legendary Pokémon
• Shiny Pokémon

However, additionally, these Pokemon types cost the same as special trades:

• Pokémon not already in your Pokédex
• Pokémon with forms not already in your Pokédex (like Unown, costumed Pikachu, and Castform)

You can only complete one special trade per day. A special trade is also performed using the same steps and rules as outlined in the Trading requirements and mechanics section of this guide.

Pokemon GO Trading costs

As already outlined above, trading requires Stardust in Pokemon GO. Some trades are more costly than others, especially those that Niantic has deemed dangerous for the in-game economy.

The following chart illustrates the different Trading Costs (based on the Good Friend friendship level, higher levels reduce Special trading costs):

Type of trade	Already in Pokedex	Not in Pokedex
Standard Pokemon	100	20,000
Legendary Pokemon	20,000	1,000,000
Shiny Pokemon	20,000	1,000,000

The following friendship level discounts apply:

• Good friend => no discount (0%)
• Great friend => small discount (20%, 800k to trade)
• Ultra friend => medium reduction (92%, 80k to trade)
• Best friend => large reduction (96%, 40k to trade)