Trading in Pokemon GO was introduced along with the friendship system back in 2018. Thanks to this feature, players are now able to trade their Pokemon with other trainers in their vicinity by paying some Stardust as a fee.
Trading in Pokemon GO
Speaking of trading pokemon, there are currently two types of trade you can perform in Pokemon GO namely, Standard trades and Special trades.
The Standard Pokemon GO trade includes trading regional pokemon, pokemon that you already own, and any non-legendary or non-shiny pokemon that aren’t in your Pokedex.
The Special Pokemon GO trade includes trading special pokemon such as pokemon with legendary or shiny attributes. These Special trades can only be done once per day and they can be very costly sometimes. (We’ll discuss more about it in the later part of this article.)
(Note: You cannot trade mythical pokemon in Pokemon GO.)
Now that you know about the types of trading in the game, it is time for us to dive deeper into the concept of trading and how you can trade with someone. But before that, let’s look at the requirements you need to fulfill for trading.
Requirements for Trading
These are the requirements every player needs to fulfill if they want to trade in Pokemon GO:
- You need to at least be a level 10 trainer.
- Both trainers need to be friends with each other for trading.
- You also can’t trade if you are far away from each other physically. Both trainers need to be within a 100-meter radius in real life to be able to send a trade request.
Besides these basic requirements, there are a few important things to keep in mind while trading in Pokemon GO:
- Each pokemon can only be traded once. Once it’s been traded, you cannot trade them ever again.
- The stats of the pokemon will change randomly once it’s been traded.
- If your trainer level is lower than the trader, the stats of the pokemon will be adjusted according to your level after trading.
Friendship Levels in Pokemon GO
Once you’ve become friends with someone in Pokemon GO, there are different levels of friendship you can achieve with them. Here is the list of all the friendship levels in Pokemon GO.
- Good Friend (If you’ve been friends for a day)
- Great Friend (If you’ve been friends for seven days)
- Ultra Friend (If you’ve been friends for 30 days)
- Best Friend (If you’ve been friends for a total of 90 days)
In Pokemon GO, you can begin trading as soon as you become friend with someone. Also, the higher your friendship level is, the cheaper it is for you to trade. Remember when I said, Special trades can be very expensive sometimes? Well, that’s because it can cost you up to 1 million Stardust just to perform one Special trade if you only have a Good Friend status with the trader.
On the other hand, this cost will gradually decrease as you move up in your friendship level, with the highest level of friendship (Best Friend) bringing the cost to a mere 40,000 Stardust for Special trades.
Cost of Trading Different Pokemon in Pokemon GO
Different amounts of Stardust are required to trade different types of pokemon. The cost can vary from a mere 100 to a whopping million Stardust to trade pokemon in Pokemon GO.
The table below shows the standard Stardust cost of trading different types of pokemon without applying any discounts.
| Type of trade | Present in Pokedex (Normal Trade) | Not present in Pokedex (Special Trade) |
| Standard Pokemon | 100 | 20,000 |
| Legendary Pokemon | 20,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Shiny Pokemon | 20,000 | 1,000,000 |
You can perform trades at much cheaper rates if your friendship level is higher with the trainer you’re trading with. The table below shows the discounted price of different types of pokemon at each friendship level in Pokemon GO.
| Friendship Level | Discount | Standard Pokemon | New Pokemon | Shiny/ Legendary (Owned) | Shiny/ Legendary (New) |
| Good Friends | 0% | 100 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Great Friends | 20% | 100 | 16,000 | 16,000 | 8,00,000 |
| Ultra Friends | 92% | 100 | 1,600 | 1,600 | 80,000 |
| Best Friends | 96% | 100 | 800 | 800 | 40,000 |
As you can see, trading Shiny pokemon is very expensive if you have just become friends in Pokemon GO. So, we recommend that you at least reach the level of Ultra Friends before trying to trade Shiny pokemon.
