Pokemon Bank closes on February 26, 2027
The Pokemon Company is shutting down Pokemon Bank, the storage app for the Nintendo 3DS. Transfers into Pokemon HOME stop on the same day, so anything still sitting in Bank after that is stuck there.
The Pokemon Company has announced that Pokemon Bank is shutting down. The service goes offline on February 26, 2027. On that day you stop being able to move Pokemon out of Bank, and you stop being able to put new ones in.
That is fewer than 200 days from now. If you have an old Nintendo 3DS in a drawer, and Pokemon parked in Bank, this is your notice to go and get them.
What Pokemon Bank actually is
Pokemon Bank came out for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013. It works like an online box. You store Pokemon there, away from any one game cartridge, and pull them out later. The app was taken off the shop in 2023, and Video Games Chronicle notes it has been running as a free service since then.
For years it was also the bridge to the present day. Pokemon from 3DS games go into Bank, and from Bank they go into Pokemon HOME, the newer storage service that runs on Nintendo Switch, iPhone and Android phones. Close Bank and you close that bridge.
Two dates are going around
Most reports give February 26, 2027. Nintendo Life and GameSpot list February 27, 2027 instead, and GameSpot credits the site Serebii and calls the date penciled in.
One day apart is almost certainly a time zone gap between Japan and the United States, but nobody has confirmed that. Treat February 26 as your deadline and you cannot be caught out either way. Better still, do not leave it until the final week.
What to do, and one problem you might hit
The Pokemon Company has told players to send anything stored in Bank over to Pokemon HOME before the closing date. So: open Bank, go through every box, and move all of it.
There is a catch for anyone who has not touched their 3DS in a while. The 3DS eShop closed in March 2023. Since then, 3DS owners have not been able to download the Bank app at all. If it is not already installed on your system, getting it now is a real problem, and no fix for that has been announced.
Why this is a bigger deal than it sounds
This is the end of the Nintendo 3DS era for Pokemon. That console generation ran for the better part of a decade, and a lot of people used Bank as the safe place for teams they had raised over many years. Some of those Pokemon were carried forward from even older games before that.
Once the service is gone, none of it comes back. There is no announced way to reach a Pokemon left inside Bank after the shutdown, and no grace period has been mentioned in any of the reports we have seen. The reports say transfers end the same day the service goes offline.
The timing is not random. Pokemon HOME is clearly the destination now, and it is about to add support for Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen in October. The old bridge closes as the new one gets wider.
Still unknown
- Whether the closing time is announced as a specific hour, and in which time zone
- Whether anything else stops working before the service itself goes offline
- Whether The Pokemon Company adds any late rescue option for people who cannot install the app
Our advice is simple. Do not plan around a rescue that has not been announced. Dig out the 3DS this month, not in February.
Related
Sources & further reading
- Nintendo Everything — Pokemon Bank is shutting down, announcement released
- Eurogamer — You have fewer than 200 days to migrate all your old Pokemon from Pokemon Bank to Pokemon Home
- Video Games Chronicle — Pokemon Bank will shut down in February 2027
- GameSpot — Nintendo Is Pulling The Plug On One Of The Best Ways To Get Rare Pokemon
- Nintendo Life — Pokemon Bank Is Shutting Down In February 2027