TOKYO – The countdown is official. Pokemon Bank, Nintendo’s 3DS-era cloud storage service that has been running on a stay of execution since 2023, will end service on February 26, 2027 at 12:00 PM. When it does, every Pokemon stored in the system that has not been transferred to Pokemon Home will be left behind on hardware the company stopped selling years ago.
Pokemon Company announced the end date alongside a significant expansion of Pokemon Home and the addition of two classic Game Boy Advance titles to the platform’s growing list of supported games.
Pokemon Bank launched in 2013 as a paid subscription service that let players store up to 3,000 Pokemon across 100 virtual boxes in the cloud, accessible from any 3DS or 2DS device. When Nintendo shut down online services for the 3DS and Wii U in April 2023, Bank was granted a specific carve-out: it kept running, free of charge, with no new downloads permitted. For players who already had it installed, the service continued to function as a transfer tool to Pokemon Home. That grace period now has an end date.
The practical implication is significant. Players who have been using Bank as long-term storage, rather than actively migrating their collection to Home, have until next February to complete the transfer. The Pokemon Company has not stated what happens to those Pokemon after the service terminates, whether the data is retained or deleted once the servers go offline.
On the Pokemon Home side, The Pokemon Company is treating the shutdown as an expansion moment. Version 4.1.0 of Pokemon Home raises the storage limit from 6,000 to 9,000 Pokemon, giving players who need to migrate larger Bank collections more room to receive them. The pricing structure remains unchanged.
The same update brings compatibility for two games conspicuously absent from Home’s supported list: Pokemon FireRed Version and Pokemon LeafGreen Version, the 2004 Game Boy Advance remakes of the original Red and Blue. FireRed and LeafGreen support is scheduled to arrive in October 2026, roughly four months before the Bank shutdown, giving players time to complete those games and begin transferring their catches to Home.
The FireRed/LeafGreen update includes Pokedex completion rewards. Players who register all obtainable Pokemon in either game will receive a Celebi, the time-traveling Mythical Pokemon that has historically been tied to event distributions. The Pokedex completion requirement counts in-game registration, meaning players do not need to physically own and transfer every Pokemon to qualify. Two event tickets will also become available after defeating the Elite Four: the Mystic Ticket, which opens a special island encounter with Lugia and Ho-Oh, and the Aurora Ticket, which grants access to Deoxys.
One specific edge case benefits from the October update. Pokemon originally caught in the Pokemon Safari Zone using a Safari Ball, transferred to Pokemon GO, and subsequently moved to Pokemon Home will now correctly display as Strange Ball Pokemon in Home. Previously, the ball type was reset during the GO transfer, leaving players uncertain about whether the visual identifier would survive the full migration chain.
Gematsu confirmed that new downloads of Pokemon Bank have been unavailable since March 2023, meaning only players with the application already installed on their 3DS can still access the service. That qualification has narrowed the relevant audience over the past three years, but those who remain may have Pokemon collections spanning a decade of gameplay.
The timing of the FireRed/LeafGreen compatibility is notable. Nintendo has been steadily adding titles to its catalog since the launch of Nintendo Switch 2, and bringing Game Boy Advance games into the Pokemon Home ecosystem fits the broader pattern of migrating older content forward. The FireRed/LeafGreen announcement comes roughly two years after the original 3DS shutdown, suggesting The Pokemon Company has been building compatibility infrastructure rather than simply extending the old system indefinitely.
For players still using Pokemon GO as a staging point for collections they have not fully transferred to Home, the October update’s Strange Ball addition clears one long-standing uncertainty about what survives the full migration chain.
The February 2027 deadline follows a broader pattern of Nintendo closing the book on its previous hardware generation, with Pokemon Home serving as the designated bridge to carry surviving collections forward. Active participation in the Pokemon ecosystem remains high: Pokemon GO Fest Chicago in June drew significant turnout, pointing to a large player base that may have Bank collections they have not thought about in years. The February 26 deadline is the clearest migration ultimatum The Pokemon Company has issued: move your Pokemon before the servers go dark.
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