Sometimes, your friends will have better luck than you Pokémon GO, or they live in another part of the world, giving them access to Pokémon you wouldn't meet. To help bring these potentially rarer Pokémon together, Niantic allowed friends to trade with each other. There are some trading steps you should know when trading with other Trainers.
How to trade with friends
The first thing you need to do before trading with another Trainer is to add them to your friends list. You will need to send them your 12-digit code or get theirs and become friends. After that, there is no recovery period. You can start trading with them immediately. To start trading you also need to be a level 10 Trainer.
Next, you need to click on your avatar icon in the bottom left section of the screen and visit your friends list. From there, click on the Trainer you wish to trade with and open their profile. On the right side of this section, you should have the option to trade. Click and the other Trainer will get a notification that you want to exchange with them. They have to accept it to start trading.
You can choose a Pokémon from your list to send with them and wait for them to make their selection. The exchange should be quick and be sure to consult with the other trainer about what you want in return.
You can only trade with Trainers when you are close enough to them. You won't be able to trade with trainers who are too far away.
Stardust costs for trading
Unfortunately, you cannot trade on a whim. You must offer Stardust to trade with friends, and the values vary based on your friendship levels. The higher the friendship levels with a particular trainer, the less stardust you have to spend. These values vary for non-owned Pokémon, owned Pokémon, and Shiny Pokémon of both categories.
Known Pokémon
- Good Friend - Shiny is 1.000.000 and Regular is 20.000
- Great Friend - Shiny is 800.000 and Regular is 20.000
- Ultra Fiend - Shiny is 80.000 and Regular is 16.000
- Best Friend - Shiny is 40.000 and Regular is 800
Owned Pokémon
- Good Friend - Shiny is 20.000 and Regular is 100
- Great Friend - Shiny has 16.000 and Regular is 80
- Ultra Friend - Shiny is 1.600 and Regular is 8
- Best Friend - Shiny is 800 and Regular is 4
Changing individual values
When you trade a Pokémon with another Trainer, its individual values (IVs) are likely to change. There is a chance chance that these IVs will increase or decrease. If they increase, the Pokémon becomes stronger than it could originally have been, but if it decreases, it becomes weaker.
Trading Pokémon can become a gamble, and if you guess right, you may walk away with a weaker Pokémon than you initially thought you didn't get. You can see the range of potential stat changes for each Pokémon, giving you a decent idea of the outcome. Unfortunately, you can only trade a Pokémon once, and you can't continually trade it to prove the possibility of perfect IVs.
