How To Get Candy In Pokemon Go

Candy is arguably the most important resource in Pokémon Go, enabling you to Power Up and evolve your Pokémon and thus strengthen them in the process.

It combines with Stardust to form arguably the central mechanic in the game outside of finding and catching Pokémon themselves, but thankfully, there's many ways to get your hands on it, including when using the new Rare Candy item.

On this page:

The best way to get Candy in Pokémon Go
How Rare Candy works in Pokémon Go

Remembering Pokémon Go's remarkable first summer (5th anniversary video)

The best way to get Candy in Pokémon Go

As updates go on for the game, more and more methods of getting Candy exist, so it's worth keeping them all in mind as you play. It is, after all, one of the more difficult resources to collect.

Catching Pokémon

The best way is, unfortunately, through grinding out those catches.

You'll get three Candy per Pokémon that you catch, and as part of the Gen 2 update, second and third tier evolutions will now give out more Candy in the wild compared to their first evolution counterparts, increasing from 3 Candy to 5 and 10 respectively.

pokes — The best way to get Candy is simple - by catching creatures.

There are ways to speed up the process for the creature you need, from finding Pokémon nests to finding Pokémon spawn locations.

It's worth noting that, now and again, seasonal updates look to increase the rates of some drops, such as Candy during Pokémon Go's Halloween event, so be sure to keep an eye on game updates to increase your stock.

Get extra Candy from using Berries in battle

As part of the Gen 2 Pokémon update, new Berries were added, introducing new effects when encountering wild Pokémon. One of these is the Pinap Berries, which will double the amount of Candy you receive if your next catch attempt succeeds.

Get extra Candy from using Berries at Gyms

As part of the summer 2017's huge Gym rework, by feeding a creature at a Gym owned by your team, there is a slim chance a Candy for that Pokémon will drop. This makes it one of the easiest ways to get high level Candy, with Gyms usually stacked with Blisseys, Tyranitars and Dragonites, and gives you another compelling reason to hang onto those Berries.

Get Candy from walking with a Buddy Pokémon

As part of the game's September 2016 update, you can assign a Pokemon as a Buddy that, after a set walking distance, will give you Candy. There are quite a few quirks to this system - some Pokemon require longer distances to drop rewards than others, for example - which we go through in detail as part of our extensive Pokémon Go Buddy system piece. Like Eggs, it's a way to get bonus items for free, so it's worth exploring the ins and outs of the system to make it work for you.

Transferring Pokémon

Not only does Transferring Pokémon clear them out of your inventory (go to your Pokémon screen, click the menu at the bottom right then hit Transfer) but it also gives you one Candy in return.

How to get Candy from hatching Eggs in Pokémon Go

The alternative means of getting Candy is through Eggs. You'll get a considerable amount of Candy from hatching eggs, however the difficulty is that actually hatching the relevant Pokémon is essentially a guessing game. Our Egg-hatching guide and Egg chart can help you narrow it down and hatch those Eggs as quickly as possible at least, but it's still an inelegant solution overall.

Our Electabuzz came with a pretty measly 16 Candy considering it was hatched from a 10km Egg.

That being said, it's often your primary means of evolving or powering up Pokémon found from 10km Eggs, such as Snorlax, as the Candy awarded for hatching the Egg is normally pretty significant. The estimated amounts of Candy you'll get from hatching Eggs - based purely on anecdotal evidence at this point - is as follows:

2km Egg - Approximately 10 Candy
5km Egg - Approximately 20 Candy
10km Egg - Approximately 30 Candy

We've heard people talking about getting slightly more or slightly less than those figures, but generally they seem to corroborate with people's experience so far, and we'll of course update the guide if any confirmation arises.

This week sees the arrival of the Ed Sheeran event. Elsewhere, the long-running Misunderstood Mischief research can now be completed - learn the latest Arlo, Cliff, Sierra counters and Giovanni counters to help you succeed. Other changes in Season of Mischief include a new Go Battle League, the addition of Raid Achievements and Ditto appearing elsewhere. Other major updates in the past year include a level cap increase, the introduction of XL Candy, boosts to some XP sources and the addition of Platinum Medals.

How Rare Candy works in Pokémon Go

Introduced as one of the many new Raid rewards, Rare Candy is the final way to get Candy in Pokémon Go.

This out-of-battle item that when used on a Pokemon, will turn into one Candy of its type.

It's not the most generous reward, but for certain creatures Candy can be incredibly hard to come by, and every piece counts.

Either way, it's not unlike Rare Candy from the main games, which increase your creature level by one.