How to Create and Link a Pokémon Trainer Club Account

Most trainers sign in to Pokémon GO with Google, Facebook or Apple and never touch the Pokémon Trainer Club (PTC) option. That's fine day to day — but a PTC login is the safest way to let anyone else act on your account, because it's a separate username and password you control and can change at any moment, rather than the keys to your whole email or social account.

It's also what our discount PokéCoins shop uses to deliver coins. Adding one takes about two minutes and you don't lose anything — your Pokémon, items, level and friends all stay exactly where they are. You're adding a second key to the same door, not moving house.

Step 1 — Create a free Pokémon Trainer Club account

Go to Pokémon's official signup page and register. You'll need:

• A username — this is separate from your Pokémon GO trainer name, and you'll type it in exactly when signing in.
• An email address and a password.
• Your date of birth — enter it accurately. An under-13 birthdate creates a restricted child account that can't be linked normally.

Confirm the verification email before moving on. An unverified PTC account will fail at the linking step with an unhelpful error.

Step 2 — Link it to your existing Pokémon GO account

Open Pokémon GO while signed in the way you normally are, then:

1. Tap the Poké Ball button to open the main menu.
2. Tap Settings (the gear icon).
3. Scroll to the Linked Accounts section — depending on your app version it may sit under an Account heading.
4. Find Pokémon Trainer Club in the list and tap Link.
5. Sign in with the PTC username and password you just created, and accept the prompt.

Done — the entry now shows as linked, and you can sign in to the same trainer with either method. Nothing about your account changes otherwise.

Step 3 — Check it actually works

Don't skip this. Sign out of Pokémon GO and sign back in using Pokémon Trainer Club, with the username and password from step 1. If your trainer loads with all your Pokémon, the link is good.

This is worth doing before you hand the login to anyone, including us — the single most common cause of a delayed PokéCoins order is a PTC login that was never tested and turns out to have a typo in it.

Common problems

• "This account is already linked." That PTC account is attached to a different Pokémon GO trainer. Create a fresh one — they're free.
• The login fails but the password is right. Almost always an unverified email (step 1) or a username/email mix-up — PTC wants the username, not the email address.
• Two-factor authentication. If you've enabled 2FA on your PTC account, anyone signing in needs the code. For a coins order, either turn 2FA off briefly or keep it on and send the code through after paying.
• You can't find Linked Accounts. Update Pokémon GO to the latest version — the settings layout has moved between releases.

Is a PTC login safe to share?

It's the safest of the options, which is exactly why we ask for it rather than a Google or Facebook password. A PTC account does nothing but sign in to Pokémon games — there's no email, no photos, no payment methods behind it — and you can change the password the moment a job is finished without affecting anything else you own.

If you're using it to buy cheap PokéCoins, we log in through the official Pokémon GO app, add the coins and sign straight back out. Change the password afterwards if you want; the coins stay.