Remote Trade and the new Forever Friends tier are now rolling out globally.

Use Remote Trades by growing your friendship points over time.

This is the most significant friendship update since the game’s launch.

Pokémon Go is introducing one of its largest social features in years, finally addressing a question Trainers have asked since 2016: why can’t I trade with someone halfway across the world? The solution is here—partially.

Remote Trade and the Forever Friends tier are launching in phases, starting in New Zealand before expanding worldwide.

Forever Friends sits above Best Friends, functioning like a long-term friendship meter. The more you interact—with battles, Gift exchanges, trades, and weekly challenge progress—the more you climb toward the new threshold. Once reached, you unlock a Remote Trade.

Continued interactions earn additional friendship points and more Remote Trades over time. There’s a limit: you can only have one active Remote Trade at a time per Forever Friend, so use them before they expire.

To enable this, Niantic has added a Remote Trade tag. You’ll tag the Pokémon you’re willing to trade, your Forever Friend does the same, and both of you build a shared wish list from each other’s tagged selections.

Each Trainer selects one Pokémon from the list, reviews the final match, then accepts or resets the trade. Lucky Friends still guarantee a Lucky outcome—even remotely—and none of these trades count as Special Trades.

There are restrictions, of course. Recently caught Pokémon, previously traded Pokémon, Mythicals, Shadows, Buddies, defenders, fused forms, crowned Zacian and Zamazenta, and anything caught in the last 30 days are not eligible.

For long-term collectors and regional swaps that once required a plane ticket, this is unquestionably the biggest friendship update the game has ever seen.

If you want to prepare for everything happening this month or simply stock up properly, check out our Pokémon Go codes!