Hundo Hunter
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Pokémon GO shiny rates explained — the actual numbers

Wild, raid, egg, research, evolution — every shiny rate with sources.

PUBLISHED 2026-05-10

The base shiny rate in Pokémon GO is ~1-in-500 for wild catches. But it varies dramatically by source. This post lists every rate with its source — Silph Road tracker data, GamePress benchmarks, and Niantic's rare public confirmations.

If you've ever wondered exactly how rare a shiny Pokémon GO catch really is, the answer depends on where you encountered it. Wild catches have one rate. Raids have another. Research breakthroughs another. Eggs another. Community Days another. This post lists every rate Hundo Hunter uses — with sources.

The big table

  • ▸Wild catches (standard): 1 in 500 (~0.2%)
  • ▸Wild catches (Community Day boost): 1 in 25 (~4%)
  • ▸Wild catches (Spotlight Hour boost): 1 in 125 (~0.8%)
  • ▸Raid encounters (most legendary bosses): 1 in 20 (5%)
  • ▸Raid encounters (some Tier 5 themed events): 1 in 10 (10%)
  • ▸Mega raid encounters: 1 in 50 (~2%)
  • ▸Egg hatches: 1 in 64 (~1.6%) — fixed, no event boost
  • ▸Field Research breakthroughs: 1 in 64 (~1.6%)
  • ▸Photobomb (Snapshot) encounters: 1 in 500 (~0.2%)
  • ▸Evolution chains: inherits from the base form's rate

Where these numbers come from

Niantic doesn't publish shiny rates. Every number above is reverse-engineered from large catch-tracking datasets — primarily Silph Road's community shiny tracker (millions of recorded encounters) and GamePress's per-event statistical analysis.

The numbers have wide confidence intervals when the dataset is small. The 1-in-500 wild rate is firmly established (10 million+ recorded wild encounters). The boosted rates during specific events are sometimes only confirmed after a single event with maybe 10 000 recorded encounters — so a 1-in-25 published rate might really be 1-in-22 or 1-in-30. The order of magnitude is right; the exact number is fuzzy.

Common misconceptions

Lucky / Best Buddy do NOT affect shiny rates

These modifiers affect IVs and stardust costs only. The shiny roll is independent. You can absolutely catch a 0/0/0 shiny.

Trading does NOT change shiny status

A shiny trade preserves shiny status. A non-shiny trade can't become shiny via trade-IV-reroll. Shiny is set at catch time, permanently.

Each encounter is an independent roll

Catching 500 non-shinies in a row doesn't make the 501st more likely to be shiny. The dice have no memory. This is the gambler's fallacy, and it bites every shiny hunter eventually.

WANT PER-SPECIES SHINY INFO?

Hundo Hunter's shiny tracker has a dedicated page for every shiny-released species — with the methods, the rates per method, and tips for hunting each. See /shinies for the index.

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