Short answer: a Gift sticker is a free, purely cosmetic decoration you attach to a Gift before sending it — your friend sees it on the postcard when they open it. You can hold up to 25 of each sticker type, they take no Item Bag space, and using one removes it from your inventory. Stickers don't affect friendship points, Stardust, or anything else under the hood.
Every friend interaction guide on this site covers Gifts, Lucky Friends and trading — stickers are the one purely decorative layer sitting on top of all of it. Here's how they actually work.
What a Gift sticker does
Before sending a Gift to a friend, you can pick one of your stickers to attach to it. It shows up on the postcard when they open the Gift. That's the entire mechanic — no gameplay bonus, no extra friendship point, no Stardust discount. It's a way to say something personal (or seasonal) alongside the Poké Balls and Stardust.
Where stickers come from
- Opening Gifts from friends occasionally includes a sticker along with the usual items.
- Spinning PokéStops and Gyms can drop them too.
- Your Buddy sometimes brings one back with the items it fetches.
- Battling Team GO Rocket Leaders and finishing certain Special or Timed Research tasks can reward specific stickers.
- The in-game shop sells some sticker packs directly for Coins.
Two broad categories: permanent stickers (starters, Pikachu variants, Ditto, and other year-round designs) stay purchasable or obtainable indefinitely, while event stickers (Community Day, GO Fest, Halloween, holiday events) are only available during their event window — once it ends, that specific design stops dropping.
The limits that actually matter
- 25 max per sticker type. Once you're capped on a design, opening more Gifts won't give you extras of that one until you use some.
- No overall sticker cap — the 25 limit is per individual design, not a total across your whole collection, and stickers sit outside the Item Bag entirely.
- One-time use. Attaching a sticker to a Gift consumes it immediately; it doesn't come back if the friend never opens that Gift.
- Attaching a sticker doesn't use up an extra Gift slot — it's still the same one Gift per friend per day rule from the gifts guide.
FAQ
Can I trade stickers with a friend directly, outside of a Gift? No — Pokémon GO has no sticker-trading feature. The only way a sticker reaches another trainer is attached to a Gift you send them.
Do stickers cost Stardust or affect friendship level? No. They're cosmetic only — the friendship point for the day still comes from the Gift itself, not the sticker.
Do I need a full sticker collection before I can send one? No — any sticker you currently hold at least one of can be attached; there's no minimum collection size.
I don't have anyone to send stickers to — where do I get more friends? The front page hands you a fresh, unused trainer code with one tap, and you can browse codes by country if you want a specific region on the other end of your next Gift.