Best Friends was the apex of Pokémon GO's friendship system until December 2025, when Niantic added Forever Friends as a sixth level. Even so, Best Friends remains the most important checkpoint: each Best Friend earned grants 150,000 XP (post October 2025 update value) and unlocks permanent battle/trade bonuses, plus opens the path to Forever Friends. Getting there takes 90 days of absolute consistency — any slip breaks the rhythm.
The official timeline
| Day | Level reached | Actions |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Good Friend | First gift exchanged |
| 7 | Great Friend | 7 consecutive days of gifts |
| 30 | Ultra Friend | 30 consecutive days |
| 90 | Best Friends | Full 90 days |
The count only advances on DIFFERENT DAYS. Trading 5 gifts on the same day counts as 1.
What counts as a 'daily exchange'?
Any of these actions count as a daily interaction and maintain the streak:
- Opening a gift sent by your friend
- Trading a Pokémon
- Joining a raid together
- Battling alongside in a gym
- Battling each other in PvP
How to organize 30+ friends to evolve simultaneously
The most efficient play is to start 30 new friendships on the same day so they all reach Best Friends at the same time. Then activate a Lucky Egg and open gifts in sequence — 30 evolutions × 150k XP × 2 (egg) = 9 million XP in 30 minutes.
Add many new friends on the same day → all evolve together → 9M XP from a single Lucky Egg 90 days later (with the updated 2025 XP values).
Events that accelerate the evolution
- Friendship Weekend: 1 day counts as 4 (reach Best Friends in ~22 days)
- Holiday events: 1 day counts as 2
- GO Fest: bonus during the 3-day event
Mark these events on your calendar and prioritize opening gifts during them. They can shorten 90 days to 22-25 days depending on coverage.
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See pricing →How to recover a lost streak
If you skipped a day, unfortunately recovery isn't guaranteed — the internal counter may have reset. There's a wrinkle: if you open a delayed gift within 48h of the last interaction, in some cases the streak persists (undocumented Niantic behavior).
The practical fix: never rely on memory. Set daily phone reminders and make gift opening part of your morning routine.
What's after Best Friends? Forever Friends
In December 2025 Niantic added Forever Friends — the sixth level, reached by accumulating 90 additional Friendship Points with each existing Best Friend. Each block of 90 points unlocks 1 Remote Trade with that friend. After the 90 days for Best Friends, you keep accumulating value with each friend — there's no longer a 'late game' wall in the social system.
Conclusion
Best Friends is less about skill and more about 90-day discipline. Players who reach the new level 80 cap have dozens of active Best Friends and Forever Friends — and typically automate the most boring part: maintaining a steady inflow of new codes so they never run out of friends to evolve.