Pokémon Worlds 2027: Singapore, Dates and How to Qualify

The 2027 Pokémon World Championships will be held at Singapore EXPO from August 13 to 15, 2027, a Friday to Sunday. Pokémon announced it at the closing ceremony of Worlds 2026 in San Francisco on August 30, 2026. It is the fourth Worlds outside the United States, after Vancouver (2013), London (2022) and Yokohama (2023), and the first in Southeast Asia.

To play, you need an invitation earned during the 2027 season, which began in September 2026: in North America, Europe, Latin America, Oceania, and the Middle East and South Africa, by finishing inside a fixed quota on the Championship Point leaderboard; in Singapore and the rest of Asia-Pacific, through the Pokémon Asia Championship Series. To watch, nothing is on sale as of September 24, 2026, and in 2026 every badge sold out before the event.

What is announced, and what is not

As of September 24, 2026.

Expo MRTThe venue has its own metro station. Photo: Fanz226, CC BY-SA 4.0.Singapore EXPOThe halls that will host the tournament. Photo: Choo Yut Shing, CC BY 2.0.

Four claims that circulate, and what is true as of September 24, 2026:

Getting there

Singapore EXPO is about 4.4 km from Changi Airport, as the crow flies, and has its own station, Expo, on the Downtown and East-West lines, one stop from the airport. The Singapore Indoor Stadium, reported for Championship Sunday, is about 10 km west in Kallang, between the EXPO and the city center. Hotels in Tampines or around the Changi Business Park, next to the EXPO, are the closest, and the Downtown Line runs straight to Expo from the city center.

Singapore EXPO sits next to the airport. The Singapore Indoor Stadium, reported for Championship Sunday, is about 10 km west, in Kallang.

Visitors must file the free SG Arrival Card within the three days before arrival, on the immigration authority's (ICA) website or the MyICA app; check there whether your passport also needs a visa. August falls in Singapore's Southwest Monsoon: expect 31 to 33°C (88 to 91°F) by day, 23 to 25°C (73 to 77°F) at night, high humidity and short afternoon thunderstorms.

Two more things to know before you book. Konami chose Singapore for the Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2027 too, announced at the close of its Tokyo finals on August 30, 2026; Konami had not published dates or a venue as of September 24, 2026, and some local reports place it at Marina Bay Sands on August 21 and 22, six days after Worlds ends. And Pokémon Center SINGAPORE, the only permanent Pokémon Center in Southeast Asia, is in Jewel Changi Airport, one MRT stop from the EXPO, open daily from 10:00 to 22:00 (see our list of every Pokémon Center).

The Singapore Indoor Stadium in show configuration. Reported as the Championship Sunday venue, not confirmed by Pokémon. Photo: TenthAvenueFreezeOut, CC BY-SA 4.0.

How you qualify in the Championship Point zones

In North America, Europe, Latin America, Oceania, and the Middle East and South Africa, a fixed number of competitors per zone, age division and game earns an invitation from their final position on the Championship Point leaderboard. You chase a rank, not a points total. The 2027 quotas are published:

Official 2027 quotas, read on September 24, 2026, subject to change. Pokémon GO has no age divisions.

That makes 1,025 TCG, 505 VGC and 220 Pokémon GO invitations on points: 585 for North America, 575 for Europe, 450 for Latin America, 100 for Oceania and 40 for the Middle East and South Africa, 1,750 in all. The event will be larger, because direct invitations come on top and Japan, South Korea, mainland China and Asia-Pacific qualify their players separately.

Direct invitations skip the leaderboard. First place at a Regional or Special Championship earns one, and so does a top-four finish in your age division at an International Championship or at the previous Worlds. They do not pass down: if the winner already has an invitation, the runner-up gets nothing extra.

Age divisions are fixed for the whole season by year of birth: Junior 2015 or later, Senior 2011 to 2014, Masters 2010 or earlier. At events in Germany, players under 12 must use the Junior version of Pokémon Champions, whose launch was scheduled for September 9, 2026; in Brazil, players under 14.

The end date of the race is not published. The last International Championship is June 18 to 20, 2027, but League Cups and Challenges keep awarding points at local stores, and no leaderboard cutoff had been announced as of September 24, 2026.

How players in Singapore and Asia-Pacific qualify

Singapore is not a Championship Point zone. Players living in the series' seven territories (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia) qualify through the 2026-27 Pokémon Asia Championship Series, which started on September 1, 2026. Japan, South Korea and mainland China run programs of their own.

• Card game: four tiers of events, from the local Great Ball League (SGD 15 in Singapore) through the Ultra Ball League to two large free events, the Premier Ball League that opens the series and the Master Ball League that closes it. Players collect League Points, their best eight results count, each age division has its own ranking, and the top of each ranking earns a Worlds invitation once the Master Ball League is played. The very best at the Premier Ball League can also earn one.
• Video game: online qualifiers lead to the Premier Ball League and the Master Ball League, which award Worlds invitations; the Master Ball League also awards Travel Awards.
• Singapore's card-game Premier Ball League is on December 12 and 13, 2026 at Suntec Singapore (halls 401 and 402, level 4), for Singapore residents only, free, with room for 60 Juniors, 120 Seniors and 1,000 Masters; registration is on the Pokémon TCG Trainers Website. Its age divisions differ from those of the Championship Point zones: Juniors are born on or after September 1, 2015, Masters on or before August 31, 2009.

How many Worlds invitations each territory gets for 2027 had not been published as of September 24, 2026.

The 2027 season calendar

Three International Championships anchor the season. The season is named after the year of its Worlds, so the 2027 Latin America International is played in November 2026.

Around them sit twenty-nine Regional and Special Championships, one of them (Baltimore) already played.

Official calendar, read on September 24, 2026. September to December dates are in 2026, January to June in 2027.

Below that tier, League Challenges and League Cups at local stores award points on a smaller scale: 15 for winning a League Challenge, 50 for a League Cup, with your best four results of each kind counting. Video game players also have online VGC Global Challenges, the first of which starts on September 24, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. PDT. New to competitive play? Our guide to playing the Pokémon TCG covers the rules.

Which cards and rules will apply

Cards leave Standard by regulation mark, not by set, and an older printing stays legal when a functionally identical reprint carries a legal mark. The format in force legalizes marks H, I and J; G rotated out after an announcement on January 9, 2026 that took effect at tournaments on April 10, 2026. The rotation that will apply in Singapore has not been announced as of September 24, 2026. If Pokémon keeps last year's rhythm, it would be announced around January 2027 and take effect around April 2027, four months before Worlds; that is a reading of past calendars, not an announcement. No English set after Mega Evolution Delta Reign (November 6, 2026) had been announced either.

Worlds 2026 was the first played on Pokémon Champions, and the whole 2027 video game season runs on it. The ruleset for Singapore and the Worlds device policy will be announced later. Pokémon GO becomes a team event: three against three, in teams of three or four players formed after the season through open recruitment across zones, with the top four of each 2027 International Championship as captains. The recruitment platform and the format's limited meta had not been announced as of September 24, 2026.

Can you get in as a spectator?

Nothing has been announced for Singapore as of September 24, 2026. Here is how 2026 worked:

• Every badge sold out, for Worlds and for the PokémonXP fan event beside it. Buying went through interest lists, one for multi-day passes and a later one for single days, with invitations to buy sent in waves; single-day badges were reported at about $40 to $60.
• Badges were personal: tied to your name and Pokémon Trainer Central account, collected with a government-issued photo ID, and not transferable.
• The on-site Pokémon Center store was open only to registered PokémonXP and Worlds attendees, who booked a shopping slot in early August. In 2025 the store had needed a reservation but no badge.
• The stream is free: competitions, panels and ceremonies are broadcast on Pokémon's official channels.

Honolulu, 2024The queue for the official store. Photo: Daniel Ramirez, CC BY 2.0.Washington, 2014Queueing is the format. Photo: David from Washington DC, CC BY 2.0.

What 2026 looked like

Worlds 2026 ran from August 28 to 30 in San Francisco. It was the first edition on two venues, the Moscone Center for the tournament and the Chase Center for Championship Sunday, and the first beside a separate fan convention, PokémonXP, which The Pokémon Company told the press will not be part of 2027. Its prize pool passed $2,000,000, UNITE included.

The money, if you qualify

An invitation is not a plane ticket. Travel Awards go by your final Championship Point rank in your home zone at the end of the season. The official page still shows the 2026 bands, and it does not say whether the ranks are counted inside each age division or across the whole zone. The likeliest reading is per age division: the leaderboards are kept per division, and the Travel Awards for the International Championships are explicitly given to the top four of each age division. On that reading, Europe funds 84 card-game players, not 28.

Worlds 2026 card-game bands, still on the official page on September 24, 2026. The video game bands are the same in Oceania and smaller elsewhere; the Pokémon GO bands are smaller everywhere.

A Travel Award is a flat sum paid before the event, and you book your own trip: $3,500 for an adult traveling from outside the event region and $2,000 inside it, $5,000 and $2,500 for under-18s. A Travel Stipend is $1,000, paid after the event if you play at least one round. Invitees outside the bands, including direct invitations won outside your own zone, get no Travel Award. Residents of Iran, Russia, South Africa and Venezuela are not currently eligible, even though South Africa's zone has award places. Which zones count as inside the event region for Singapore has not been published. New for 2027: from the Europe International Championships on, ties for any Travel Award are broken by your best finishes at Regionals and Internationals, no longer by Play! Points.

The cards that come out of Worlds

Worlds leaves three kinds of cards that are easy to confuse: stamped promos handed to competitors and spectators, the competitors' welcome kit, and the World Championships Decks, boxed reprints of winning decks with a different back, not legal in tournaments. We list 20 English deck editions (1,324 cards, 2004 to 2025) and the 30 cards of the Japanese commemorative deck sold for Yokohama 2023. A few of them fetch real money, as of September 24, 2026, from real completed sales: the 2008 Mew Gold Star at $796 est. (1 sale), the Pikachu ex of the Japanese Yokohama deck at $383 (4 sales), the 2011 Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND at $200 (3 sales), the 2006 Latias Gold Star at $186 (5 sales), the 2007 Jolteon Gold Star at $162 est. (2 sales) and the 2004 Rayquaza ex at $59.61 (10 sales).

Mew Gold Star#101/101Pikachu ex#1Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND#89Latias Gold Star#105/107Jolteon Gold Star#101Rayquaza ex#97

Our year-by-year guide to Worlds promo cards covers what was given out at each edition.

FAQ

Where and when is Worlds 2027?

At Singapore EXPO, from Friday, August 13 to Sunday, August 15, 2027. Singapore media reported that Championship Sunday will be at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, but Pokémon had named only the EXPO as of September 24, 2026.

How many Championship Points do I need?

No set number. A fixed number of players per zone, age division and game is invited by rank, for example the top 140 TCG Masters in Europe; winning a Regional or finishing top four at an International invites you directly.

How do players in Singapore qualify?

Through the 2026-27 Pokémon Asia Championship Series, not through Championship Points. Its large opening card-game event in Singapore, the Premier Ball League, is on December 12 and 13, 2026.

Can I buy tickets for Worlds 2027?

Not yet: no price, date or lottery had been announced as of September 24, 2026. In 2026, badges went through interest lists and sold out.

Will Pokémon UNITE be at Worlds 2027?

No. It leaves the Championship Series and gets a separate in-person event in Japan, with travel paid for qualified teams.

Which cards will be legal at Worlds 2027?

Unknown as of September 24, 2026. Standard currently allows regulation marks H, I and J, and the rotation for Singapore has not been announced.