It’s the next instalment in a long line of in-game features - starting with the Time Capsule of Pokémon Gold and Silver - and services, like Pokémon Bank, which grant you the ability to bring your favourite Pokémon together in one place. Pokémon Home is compatible with Pokémon Sword, Shield, Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pearl and Legends: Arceus, along with Pokémon Bank and Pokémon Go. Aside from transferring Pokémon, this service has a variety of features divided across free and premium tiers. On this page: It’s essentially an evolved form of Pokémon Bank and is available on both the Nintendo Switch and smartphone devices; exactly what features Pokémon Home has, however, depends on which platform you’re using it on. Pokémon Home’s features can be divided into three key catorgies - collecting, trading and transferring. We have a dedicated guide on how to transfer Pokémon to Pokémon Home and, if you’d like to learn which games are compatible with the service, visit the next section. Here we’ll give you an in-depth look in to both the collecting and trading aspects of Pokémon Home. First, however, let’s take a look at the differences between the Nintendo Switch and smartphone version of the service.
Nintendo Switch and mobile version differences
Below you can find the differences between the Nintendo Swtich and smartphone versions of Pokémon Home: As you can see, both versions of Pokémon Home serve quite different purposes. Thankfully, with the service being free, it’s easy to access all of the features - you just need to make sure that the Pokémon Home app can run on your phone!
Collecting with Pokémon Home
Pokémon Home allows you to consolidate your Pokémon collections from various games into one massive Pokémon horde. To help you keep track of all these Pokémon, the service includes a selection of features to help you discover which Pokémon you’re missing, analyse the ones you have, follow the latest Pokémon news and celebrate your collection:
National Pokédex - Registers every Pokémon you’ve transferred to Pokémon Home, including their Mega and Evolutions and Gigantamax forms. Smartphone-exclusive features including viewing a Pokémon’s appearance in details and checking both their Abilities and movesets. It’s also important to note that, if you have Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Pokémon Home will update its Pokédex entries based upon your completition of that game’s Pokédex. Therefore, if a Pokédex entry is incomplete in Legends: Arceus, it will not appear in Pokémon Home’s National Pokédex. Pokédex from mainline Pokémon games - With the release of Pokémon Home version 2.0, the service now adds Pokémon to following Pokédexes when transferred or if they were depoisted in Pokémon Home before the update: Pokédex from Pokémon Go Kanto Pokédex from Pokémon Lets Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! Galar Pokédex from Pokémon Sword and Shield Isle of Armor Pokédex from Isle of Armor DLC for Pokémon Sword and Shield Crown Tundra Pokédex from Crown Tundra DLC for Pokémon Sword and Shield Sinnoh Pokédex from Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Hisui Pokédex from Pokémon Legends: Arceus
Mystery Gifts - Earn Mystery Gifts for Pokémon Sword, Shield and specifically for Pokémon Home. Upon the release of version 2.0, transferring a Pokémon for the first time from the following games will unlock a new Mystery Gift in the smartphone version of Home: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl - Turtwig, Chimchar and Piplup with Hidden Abilities Pokémon Legends: Arceus - Rowlet, Cyndaquil and Oshawott with maximum Effort Levels Judge Pokémon - A Premium-exclusive features which allows you check how strong your Pokémon are. Battle Data - A smartphone-exclusive features which allows you to check the Ranked Battles and Online Competitions of Pokémon Sword and Shield. Here you can see the battle records for each Trainer, which moves are popular in competitions and the rankings of Pokémon used in said competitions. Catch Calender - Arrange Pokémon by date you caught them on and even set anniversaries for special Pokémon-related occassions. Pokémon Home Points - Every time you deposit a Pokémon, you earn Pokémon Home Points. On the Nintendo Switch version of Home, these points can be exchanged for Battle Points (BP) for use in mainline Pokémon games.
Challenges - On the smartphone-version of Pokémon Home, you can complete various challenges - from transferring Pokémon with specific natures to trading for specific Pokémon - to unlock stickers. The Nintendo Switch version of Home has a list of Research Tasks you can complete, but these offer no rewards. Your Room - Learn about events or games you’ve connected to Pokémon Home. Can also be customised through the use of stickers unlocked by completing Challenges. News - A smartphone-exclusive features where you find the latest Pokémon news, from gifts to Online Competitions.
Trading in Pokémon Home
As well as the ability to transfer Pokémon to (and in some cases, from) Home to other Pokémon games, Pokémon Home will also allow you to trade Pokémon with other Home users - whether they’re your friends and anyone else around the world. There are four different ways to trade in Pokémon Home and all of them are exclusive to the smartphone version of the service:
Friend Trade - Trade with a player from your Pokémon Home Friends List. Global Trade System (GTS) - Specify which Pokémon, even if its not in your Pokémon Home National Pokédex, you want and trade with another player who matches your criteria. Room Trade - Enter, or create, a private trading room of up to 20 people, but you don’t know which Pokémon you’re receiving until the trade is completed. Wonder Box - Trade Pokémon with a randomly selected player from across the world. Trades are completed even when you’re not using Pokémon Home.
Having a Pokémon Home subscription will increase the amount of Pokémon you can trade via the GTS or Wonder Boxes at one time, along with granting you the ability to create rooms for Room Trades.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus - Nintendo Switch Pokémon Brilliant Diamond - Nintendo Switch Pokémon Shining Pearl - Nintendo Switch Pokémon Sword - Nintendo Switch Pokémon Shield - Nintendo Switch Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! - Nintendo Switch Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! - Nintendo Switch Pokémon Bank - Nintendo 3DS Pokémon Go (iOS and Android)
Thanks to the release of Pokémon Home’s 2.0 update on May 18th 2022, you can transfer Pokémon from Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl to Home. It’s important to note that transferring Pokémon to a game they weren’t orginally caught in, such as from Legends: Arceus to Brilliant Diamond, may cause the Pokémon’s moves and level to change. You may even find that Pokémon’s Poké Ball has changed too! You can also only deposit Pokémon that can be caught once during regular Pokémon Brilliant Diamond or Shining Pearl gameplay once per save data in Pokémon Home. Meanwhile, Origin Forme Dialga, Palkia and Giratina will revert to their base form, as will Arceus, when transferred to Pokémon Home. Sky Forme Shaymin, however, will remain the same upon being deposited in Home. Alpha Pokémon transferred into Home from Legends: Arceus will retain their Alpha status, along with the symbol which represents this fact. When it comes to transferring Pokémon from Pokémon Go into Pokémon Sword and Shield, you must first ensure you’ve either already caught said Pokémon or that its registered in the Galar Pokédex. You can also only transfer Pokémon which appear in the Galar Pokédex into Pokémon Sword and Shield. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! also have a similar ceveat - where you can only transfer Gen 1 Pokémon into either game, since neither game has a National Pokédex. It’s also important to know that if a Pokémon orginally from Let’s Go, Pikachu! or Let’s Go, Eevee! is transferred into Sword and Shield, it can not be moved back to either of the Let’s Go games. You can, however, easily transfer Pokémon between the two Let’s Go games. Premium tier Pokémon Home players also have the ability to transfer Pokémon from Pokémon Bank into Pokémon Home - freeing them from the confines of the Nintendo 3DS. Yet, if you transfer a Pokémon from Bank, you won’t be able to move it back. Our dedicated how to transfer Pokémon to Pokémon Home page explains how to do all this in further detail. Finally, when a Pokémon orginally caught in Pokémon Sword, Shield, Brilliant Diamond or Shining Pearl is transferred into Legends: Arceus they will be kept in a Strange Ball; with the same thing occuring if you transfer a Pokémon from Legends: Arceus into Brilliant Diamond or Shining Pearl. This change occurs because the modern day Poké Balls don’t exist during the time period of Legends: Arceus, just like how the primitive Poké Balls of the Hisui era are no longer used in the modern day Pokémon world. With it finally in the wild, here’s how to start the Crown Tundra DLC and our full Pokémon Crown Tundra walkthrough. Plus, here’s how to catch Calyrex, Glastrier and Spectrier, the Regieleki and Regidrago puzzle solution and Regirock, Regice, Registeel locations, details on how to catch Legendary Birds Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres in the Crown Tundra, the Ultra Beasts and Necrozma adventure, Dynamax Adventures, including the legendries you can catch on these adventures, and the new Crown Tundra Pokédex and returning Pokémon explained. For Isle of Armor players, here’s how to find the Slowpoke, where to find Max Mushroom locations, and how to get Kubfu, become best friends and evolve it, plus all Diglett locations too! For the base game, here’s info on the ability to transfer Pokémon to Pokémon Home, the Wild Area, lists of all TM locations and TRs, all Galarian forms and finally our main Pokémon Sword and Shield walkthrough for the whole game. It’s important to note that the subscription prices for the Premium tier differ depending on whether you wish to purchase it via the Nintendo eShop or the mobile version of Pokémon Home. Pokémon Home’s Premium tier subscription fees are as follows: This is more expensive than Pokémon Bank at £4.49 / $4.99 / €4.99 - but remember that Home’s core features are free. Purchasing a ‘Premium’ Home subscription allows you to do the following:
Transfer Pokémon from Pokémon Bank to Pokémon Home Deposit and store up to 6,000 Pokémon Have up to 10 Pokémon up for trade in your Wonder Box at a time Have up to three Pokémon up for trade on the GTS at a time Create Rooms for the Room Trade feature (participation within a Room, however, remains free for all) Use the ‘Judge’ function to see how strong a Pokémon will be
The question is - what happens to those Pokémon when your Pokémon Home subscription runs out? Here’s The Pokémon’s Company official statement on what happens: “If you deposit 31 or more Pokémon in Pokémon Home while you have the Premium Plan, and your plan then changes to the no-cost Basic Plan, you will not be able to view or withdraw any Pokémon beyond the 30th Pokémon you deposited. “By re-enrolling in the Premium Plan, you’ll be able to view all the information about the additional Pokémon as well as move them out of Pokémon Home.” So your Pokémon will be safe - though most will be inaccessible until you resubscribe to Pokémon Home. This makes the decision to transfer Pokémon forward from previous generations more important - do you want to bring them to Pokémon Home at the risk of not being able to access them if your subscription lapses, or should they stay in those games where you could readily access them? It’s a choice only you can make. Ultimately, it’s better than Pokémon Bank - which had a disclaimer it would remove your Pokémon if you didn’t keep up the subscription. At least in Pokémon Home, they won’t go anywhere!
