The Pokemon Company has announced that Pokemon Bank, the Nintendo 3DS cloud storage app that has let trainers hold onto their Pokemon for more than a decade, will permanently shut down in February 2027. Once the service goes dark, players will lose the ability to transfer any remaining Pokemon from Pokemon Bank into Pokemon HOME, the newer cloud storage and transfer service that succeeded it.
According to Nintendo Everything, the official notice states that Pokemon Bank will discontinue its service on February 26, 2027, at 12:00 p.m. Pokemon.com, the franchise's official site, lists the shutdown as happening on Thursday, February 25, 2027, at 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time. The two dates are not actually in conflict once time zones are accounted for; Pokemon.com's Pacific Time figure and the Japan-based announcement cited by Nintendo Everything appear to describe the same cutoff moment viewed from different sides of the International Date Line. Either way, trainers have a firm, specific window closing in late February 2027 to act.
The official statement from The Pokemon Company, as relayed by Nintendo Everything, reads in part: "We regret to inform you that Pokemon Bank will be discontinuing its service on February 26, 2027 (Friday) at 12:00 PM. Consequently, the function to transfer Pokemon from Pokemon Bank to Pokemon HOME will also be discontinued on the same day." The company urged players to move any Pokemon they want to keep into Pokemon HOME before that deadline, warning that once the service ends, the transfer pathway closes for good.
Pokemon.com's own announcement described Pokemon Bank as the Nintendo 3DS application that let players deposit or withdraw Pokemon they had befriended in 3DS-era Pokemon titles, storing them in online boxes separate from their game cartridges. That service has effectively been in maintenance mode for some time already. Pokemon.com noted that new downloads of the Pokemon Bank app have already ended, meaning trainers who never installed it can no longer do so. The company also clarified that transfers only ever flowed one direction between the two services: Pokemon could move from Pokemon Bank into Pokemon HOME, but never back from Pokemon HOME into Pokemon Bank. Additionally, PokeMile Points earned through Pokemon Bank will not carry over to Pokemon HOME, so those rewards will simply be lost once the app is retired.
FireRed and LeafGreen Join Pokemon HOME in October 2026
The Pokemon Bank shutdown news arrived alongside a separate, more celebratory announcement: Pokemon FireRed Version and Pokemon LeafGreen Version, the Nintendo Switch re-releases set in the Kanto region, will link up with Pokemon HOME starting in October 2026, according to Pokemon.com. Once that link goes live, players will be able to transfer Pokemon they befriended in those two Kanto-set games into Pokemon HOME and then carry them into other titles across the Pokemon series.
That transfer comes with a permanent catch familiar to longtime fans of the franchise's transfer system: once a Pokemon leaves FireRed or LeafGreen for another game via Pokemon HOME, it cannot return to FireRed or LeafGreen. The reverse is also true, Pokemon.com said, since Pokemon from other games in the series cannot visit FireRed or LeafGreen at all.
Players who complete their Kanto Pokedex in FireRed or LeafGreen have an added incentive to link up with Pokemon HOME. Pokemon.com said that trainers who fill out the regional Pokedex in either game will be able to receive the Mythical Pokemon Celebi as a gift through the mobile version of Pokemon HOME. Notably, players do not need to actually transfer their Pokemon to HOME to unlock this reward. Simply connecting a Pokemon HOME account is enough for any Pokemon already registered in the FireRed or LeafGreen Pokedex to also register within Pokemon HOME, and trainers can use the service's Global Trade Station to trade for entries they are missing.
Beyond the main storyline, FireRed and LeafGreen players still have post-game content tied to the Kanto adventure. After defeating the Elite Four and entering the Hall of Fame, players automatically receive a Mystic Ticket, granting access to the Legendary Pokemon Lugia and Ho-Oh, along with an Aurora Ticket that unlocks an encounter with the Mythical Pokemon Deoxys. Pokemon.com said this applies whether players are revisiting these encounters from the original Game Boy releases or experiencing them for the first time on Nintendo Switch.
Bigger Storage and New Pokemon GO Transfers
The October 2026 update, listed as version 4.1.0, brings additional changes to Pokemon HOME itself. Pokemon.com said trainers subscribed to the paid Premium Plan will see their storage capacity jump from 6,000 Pokemon to 9,000, without any change to the subscription price. That's a 50 percent increase in deposit space for the same monthly or annual cost, a notable boost for collectors who have been bumping up against the previous ceiling.
The same update will also allow, for the first time, the transfer of Pokemon originally caught using a Safari Ball in Pokemon GO. Pokemon.com explained that when these Pokemon move into Pokemon HOME, the Safari Ball designation will convert into what the game calls a Strange Ball, preserving a visual record of their unusual origin even though the Safari Ball itself doesn't exist as a distinct item within the mainline storage system.
For players still holding Pokemon in the aging Pokemon Bank app, the practical guidance from both The Pokemon Company and Pokemon.com is straightforward: move anything worth keeping into Pokemon HOME well before the late February 2027 cutoff. After that date, Pokemon Bank's boxes, and anything left inside them, will be permanently out of reach, closing the book on one of the franchise's longest-running storage services just as its successor gains new capacity and new games to support.
