The Pokémon Company has dated the end of Pokémon Bank, while Pokémon HOME is adding FireRed and LeafGreen support, a Celebi reward, and new pressure on legacy collections.
Image: vice.com
Pokémon Bank now has a final transfer window
The Pokémon Company has announced that Pokémon Bank will end service in February 2027, cutting off the long-running 3DS storage app’s transfer route into Pokémon HOME. The company’s notice, as quoted by Nintendo Everything, says Pokémon Bank will discontinue service on February 26, 2027 at 12:00 PM, and that the function used to transfer Pokémon from Pokémon Bank to Pokémon HOME will end on the same day.
That date is the practical center of the Pokemon Bank shutdown, but players will see it rendered differently depending on region and time zone. Eurogamer quotes The Pokémon Company’s English statement as Thursday, February 25, 2027 at 7 PM PST. Nintendo Everything, Gematsu, and VGChartz cite February 26, 2027 from the Japanese announcement. Nintendo Life’s headline uses February 27, while GameSpot cites Serebii’s February 27 listing. The safest reading is that players should treat late February 2027 as the deadline and not wait for the final day, especially if their collection spans old hardware, paid HOME requirements, and multiple accounts.
The immediate tension is simple: Pokémon HOME will continue, but Pokémon Bank will stop being the bridge from the 3DS-era ecosystem into it. The Pokémon Company’s notice tells players who wish to transfer Pokémon stored in Bank to send them to HOME before service ends.
The cutoff closes a generation-spanning route, not every old save file
Pokémon Bank has been the 3DS-era cloud box for older Pokémon collections for more than a decade. Siliconera notes that Bank launched on 3DS in 2014 after issues with its planned December 2013 debut, and that it worked with Pokémon X and Y through Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. The same report says older Virtual Console titles could feed into Bank through Poké Transporter.
Eurogamer describes Bank as a hub that let players import Pokémon from Black and White, Black and White 2, X and Y, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and Sun and Moon into one shared location. GameSpot adds that, with the separate 3DS app involved, Bank became one of the main ways to bring rare Pokémon from older Nintendo DS games forward toward Switch-era games.
The February 2027 shutdown does not mean every Pokémon sitting on an old cartridge vanishes from that cartridge. What it does mean, based on The Pokémon Company’s notice, is that Bank itself will no longer store Pokémon and will no longer transfer to HOME. Once that service is gone, the official route described by these outlets for moving many DS and 3DS-era collections into the modern HOME ecosystem is gone with it. For completionists, shiny hunters, competitive players with legacy ribbon projects, and anyone who has treated a living Pokédex like a campaign file, the deadline is a preservation problem.
What players should move before Pokémon Bank access ends
The priority is any Pokémon currently stored in Pokémon Bank that you want to keep in the active HOME ecosystem. The Pokémon Company’s shutdown notice is explicit: if you wish to transfer Pokémon stored in Bank, send them to Pokémon HOME before Pokémon Bank service ends. The notice also confirms that new downloads for Pokémon Bank have already ended, that Pokémon cannot be transferred from Pokémon HOME back to Pokémon Bank, and that PokéMile Points received through Bank cannot be transferred to HOME.
That one-way rule matters when organizing boxes. A Pokémon moved from Bank to HOME has left the 3DS storage environment permanently. If your attachment is tied to keeping teams available in older 3DS games, there is a player-choice tradeoff between historical placement and future accessibility. If your goal is long-term storage, Switch-era compatibility, or National Pokédex continuity, the source-supported advice is to migrate before the cutoff.
There are account and capacity considerations too. GameSpot reports that Pokémon Bank is currently free to use, while Pokémon HOME requires a monthly or annual subscription to house a large collection and to link to Pokémon Bank for transfers. GameSpot also notes that HOME’s free tier stores up to 30 Pokémon, which is not realistic for players maintaining a full multi-generation archive. Siliconera reports that the October 2026 HOME update will increase the service’s cap to 9,000 Pokémon, a relevant change for players who have delayed moving boxes because HOME space was tight.
The practical plan is to audit Bank boxes early, decide which legacy teams or rare Pokémon must move, confirm the HOME account you intend to use, and avoid leaving the transfer to the final service window. The sources do not describe any post-shutdown recovery option for Pokémon left in Bank.
FireRed and LeafGreen get HOME support before Bank shuts down
The shutdown announcement arrived alongside new Pokémon HOME support for Pokémon FireRed Version and Pokémon LeafGreen Version on Nintendo Switch. Nintendo Everything, citing the official Pokémon.com rundown, reports that the two Kanto games will link with Pokémon HOME beginning in October 2026. Once linked, Pokémon befriended in those titles can be transferred to HOME and brought to other games in the Pokémon series.
This FireRed LeafGreen Pokemon HOME support is also one-way by design. The official rundown quoted by Nintendo Everything says that once a Pokémon from FireRed or LeafGreen is brought to another game in the series, it cannot return to FireRed or LeafGreen. It also says Pokémon from other games cannot visit FireRed or LeafGreen.
That keeps the Switch versions of FireRed and LeafGreen from becoming open-ended storage targets. They function as source games for HOME, not as receiving games for the rest of a collection. GameSpot reports that each Switch version costs $20, so players looking at these games as a new Kanto pipeline should understand the limitation before buying them for collection management rather than nostalgia or replay value.
The timing is notable. HOME gains a fresh route for Switch-era FireRed and LeafGreen Pokémon in October 2026, then Bank loses its route into HOME in February 2027. Those are separate paths. The new support does not extend Pokémon Bank’s life, and the Bank shutdown does not prevent FireRed and LeafGreen on Switch from linking with HOME after their update arrives.
The Celebi reward favors Pokédex work over emptying every box
The most completionist-friendly part of the HOME update is the Celebi reward. Nintendo Everything’s official rundown says players who complete the Pokédex in Pokémon FireRed Version and Pokémon LeafGreen Version can receive the Mythical Pokémon Celebi as a gift in the mobile version of Pokémon HOME. That is the Celebi reward Pokemon HOME players will want to plan around if they are replaying Kanto with a full-dex objective.
The important detail is how registration works. According to the official rundown quoted by Nintendo Everything, players do not need to transfer Pokémon into HOME to complete this Pokédex requirement. Once Pokémon HOME is connected, any Pokémon registered in the FireRed or LeafGreen Pokédex will also be registered in HOME. The same rundown reminds players that HOME’s GTS can help fill out the Pokédex.
That structure softens the one-way transfer issue. If your goal is Celebi, you can focus on Pokédex registration in FireRed and LeafGreen rather than exporting every party member and permanently removing them from the Kanto save. If your goal is to bring a particular Venusaur, Lapras, Snorlax, or Legendary forward into a newer game, the one-way transfer restriction still applies once that Pokémon leaves.
Older collections now need a preservation decision
Pokémon’s transfer history has always asked players to move forward through systems, but Pokémon Bank’s end date turns that into a hard deadline. Bank survived the 3DS eShop closure, and Siliconera notes that it became free to use after that shutdown. Eurogamer also points out that Nintendo and The Pokémon Company kept Bank online even after wider 3DS online play ceased. The February 2027 cutoff is the point where that grace period ends.
For older collections, HOME is becoming the central archive. It is available on Switch, iOS, and Android, as Gematsu notes, and it will continue after Bank ends. It is also gaining FireRed and LeafGreen connectivity, a larger capacity according to Siliconera, and a HOME-based Celebi reward tied to Kanto Pokédex completion. Those updates make HOME more useful for old-school collectors, but they also make the division cleaner: Pokémon you want in the future-facing ecosystem need to be in HOME before Bank disappears.
There is one area to keep separate from confirmed news. Eurogamer says the FireRed and LeafGreen HOME update has sparked speculation about potential Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald ports, but also says nothing official has been announced. At the moment, the confirmed update is FireRed and LeafGreen support in October 2026, plus the Pokémon Bank February 2027 shutdown. Anyone waiting for another legacy-port announcement before migrating Bank boxes is gambling against a dated service closure.
The patient route is the safest one: preserve first, optimize later. Move irreplaceable Bank Pokémon to HOME while the bridge still exists, use the October FireRed and LeafGreen update for new Kanto captures and Pokédex registration, and treat late February 2027 as the end of the old official transfer chain rather than a maintenance window that can be worked around later.