Cards printed
How many Pokémon cards are printed each year, and how many new cards come out in each language.
Updated 15 Nov 2026
Cards printed each year
Billions of cards, all languages · 85 billion since 1996
About 10 billion Pokémon cards are now printed each year, 3 times as many as in 2019–20 (3.2 billion). The most was 11.9 billion in the year to March 2024. It has dipped a little since.
1.1'17
2.1'18
1.5'19
3.2'20
3.7'21
9.1'22
9.7'23
12'24
10'25
10'26
Japan: about 3.8 billion (38%), year to March 2026
How this is measured
Every March, The Pokémon Company reports how many cards it has printed in total. Each year's number is the difference between two reports (2016 was not reported, so 2015–17 is split evenly). Japan's number is our rough estimate from Japanese toy sales figures.
New cards by language
How many different cards came out each year (not copies printed)
| Year | Japanese | English | Chinese |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 749 | 1,137 | – |
| 2017 | 1,095 | 802 | – |
| 2018 | 1,152 | 866 | – |
| 2019 | 1,085 | 1,161 | 2 |
| 2020 | 1,007 | 1,076 | – |
| 2021 | 1,500 | 1,264 | 419 |
| 2022 | 1,881 | 1,153 | 181 |
| 2023 | 1,798 | 1,757 | 1,138 |
| 2024 | 1,536 | 1,290 | 559 |
| 2025 | 2,151 | 1,514 | 1,574 |