pokemontcgapi

Python client for the Pokémon TCG API at pokemontcgapi.com: cards, sets, illustrators, the reference vocabularies and photo recognition, across three print lines, international, Japanese and Simplified Chinese, with card names in eight locales, images, and prices that state their source, basis, grade and sample size. The current counts are live at /v1/status.

Every data route has a method: cards, sets, series, artists, sealed products, the dedicated price routes (current, batch, history, stats, movers, sources), the /v1/changes feed, the reference vocabularies and photo recognition. Account and billing routes (/v1/me, keys, checkout) are not wrapped: they belong to the dashboard.

One runtime dependency, httpx, which gives the synchronous client and the asynchronous one the same request and response objects. Python 3.10 or newer. Fully typed (py.typed), with TypedDict response shapes that never hide a field the API added.

Unofficial. Not produced, endorsed, supported by or affiliated with Nintendo, Creatures Inc., GAME FREAK inc. or The Pokémon Company International. Pokémon and all related marks are trademarks of their respective owners.

Get a key

Generate the Idempotency-Key once per signup and keep it with the request body:

IDEM=$(uuidgen)

curl -s -X POST "https://api.pokemontcgapi.com/v1/accounts/free" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $IDEM" \
  -d '{"email":"you@example.com"}'

Lost the response? Repeat the exact same request (same Idempotency-Key, same body byte for byte, same network: same public IPv4 or the same IPv6 /64) within 24 hours and the response comes back, if stored, secret included; it is the original response, so a key rotated or revoked since then is not revived. A new Idempotency-Key for the same email returns 409 ACCOUNT_EXISTS; the same key with a different body returns 409 IDEMPOTENCY_CONFLICT.

We store only a hash of the key; the signup response is kept for 24 hours so the same request can be replayed. Save data.key.secret now.

If replay is unavailable, sign in and rotate the key, or use /v1/accounts/recover with an already verified email to get a new secret.

The key comes back in data.key.secret. Confirming the address we email raises the trial from 80 to 800 credits, and the trial ends 30 days after signup. Paid plans start at 29 EUR a month: pricing.

Install

pip install pokemontcgapi

Use

from pokemontcgapi import PokemonTcgApi

client = PokemonTcgApi()  # reads PTCG_API_KEY from the environment; or PokemonTcgApi("your-key")

card = client.cards.get("base1-4", include=["prices"])
print(card["id"], card["name"], card.get("index_eur"))
# bs-4 Charizard 523.76   ← the index on 16 September 2026; it moves, yours will differ

base1-4 and bs-4 both resolve: the id is the printed coordinate — set code, dash, collector number — and the alternate legacy id resolves on the same route, so a catalogue you already have does not start with a matching problem.

Responses are the decoded JSON, typed as TypedDict: read card["name"] as in the documentation, and card.get("index_eur") for the keys that are only present with an include. The same client exists as AsyncPokemonTcgApi, with the same methods to await and pages to async for over:

from pokemontcgapi import AsyncPokemonTcgApi

async with AsyncPokemonTcgApi() as client:
    card = await client.cards.get("base1-4")
    async for set_ in await client.sets.list(region="JP"):
        print(set_["code"], set_["name"])

Pagination that you never have to think about

Every list method returns a Page, which is also iterable. Iterating it follows links.next for you. For an initial import of all cards, use the flat card list so pages fill across set boundaries:

for card in client.cards.search(limit=250, order_by="id"):
    print(card["id"], card["name"], card["set_code"])

For Japanese cards, add q="set.region:JP"; for Simplified Chinese cards, use q="set.region:CN". Add include=["translations"] when you need localized names; this keeps the plain catalogue cost. include=["index"] and include=["prices"] have different credit costs. lang selects a name translation, not a print region.

Use client.sets.list(region="JP", limit=250) to browse set metadata and client.sets.cards("obf", limit=250) when you need one particular set. For all cards, the flat list uses fewer requests than a card loop for every set. The quickstart includes dated measurements, and the migration guide explains capturing the change feed watermark before an import and keeping the replica current.

The cursor carries a signature of the sort order, so it must never be reconstructed by hand — the SDK follows the URL the API returned, which is the failure mode this avoids. page.next_page() gives you one page at a time, page.pages() every page, and .to_list(max=...) requires an explicit ceiling, because the catalogue is large enough that an unbounded materialisation is a mistake rather than a choice.

One call for a hundred cards

result = client.cards.batch(
    ["sv8-116", "sv8-100", "inventato-xyz"],
    include=["index"],  # index_eur on list and batch rows is opt-in: 1 credit per 50 cards
    select=["id", "name", "index_eur"],
)
data, requested, found = result["data"], result["requested"], result["found"]
missing = result.get("missing", [])

missing is optional: it is absent when every id resolves. Otherwise each unresolved id appears once as {"id": ..., "suggested_id": ...}, the suggestion only for an existing historical candidate in a different canonical set. In this example only sv8-100 is returned; sv8-116 suggests ssp-116, and inventato-xyz has no suggestion. A canonical set prefix binds the lookup to that set; base1-4 still resolves to bs-4 because base1 is only a historical alias.

data contains distinct cards. Repeated ids count towards requested and credits, but do not repeat rows in data or missing. Two valid aliases for one card can make found smaller than requested with no missing ids. Missing entries ignore case and retain the first spelling and request order after whitespace trimming. withheld remains an optional top-level key. More than 100 ids raise ValueError before any request: chunk the list.

Japanese, and the other seven locales

page = client.sets.cards("sv8", lang="ja", limit=1)
print(page.data[0]["name"])  # タマタマ

lang replaces the name field itself and falls back to English where a translation is missing. Locales, with the rows each one actually has on 16 September 2026: en 57,421, fr 42,858, de 42,604, ja 27,230, it 21,644, es 21,003, pt 13,822, zh 3,492. A thin locale answers mostly in English, because the fallback is per card and not per request.

Conditional requests are free

client = PokemonTcgApi(cache="etag")

Every collection carries an ETag. We compute it strong, from the body; the edge rewrites it weak with an encoding suffix when it compresses, so what you receive looks like W/"…-gzip" and you send back exactly that. With the cache on, the client stores it and replays a 304 without a body, and a 304 consumes no quota. A mirror that re-syncs often pays only for what changed.

A photo instead of an id

Included from the Growth plan up. On a trial or a Developer key the call answers 403 PLAN_REQUIRED with details.min_plan, before reading the image and without spending credits.

result = client.vision.identify("photo.jpg", set="sv3")  # a path, bytes or an open binary file
data = result["data"]

# Read `decision` before `id`. Always.
if data["decision"] == "match":
    # One candidate, close, and clear of the next.
    add(data["id"])
elif data["decision"] == "ambiguous":
    # Two printings share this illustration. `data["id"]` is None on purpose.
    show_picker(data["candidates"])
else:
    ask_for_a_better_photo()

Reprints and regional twins share their artwork, so artwork alone cannot name a printing — not here and not anywhere. The endpoint returns candidates with a distance (0–512, lower is closer; real matches land well under 150) and refuses to pick when two are within a few bits of each other. Passing set or region when your workflow knows them is what resolves the tie.

It costs 25 credits a call against 1 for a lookup: it is the whole image index answering, not a row being read. Do not put it in a loop.

Errors you can branch on

from pokemontcgapi import NotFoundError, QuotaExceededError, RateLimitedError

try:
    client.cards.get("nope-1")
except NotFoundError:
    ...
except RateLimitedError as error:
    ...  # error.retry_after
except QuotaExceededError:
    ...  # retrying will never help

Every error carries code, status, details and request_id — quote the request id in a support message, it is the only thing that can be looked up. Retries use exponential backoff with full jitter on 429, 5xx and network failures, honour Retry-After, and never retry a quota exhaustion. Network failures raise ApiConnectionError (and ApiTimeoutError after the per-attempt timeout), which are not API errors and carry no code.

Commercial refusals include details.next_step, exposed as the typed error.next_step. If error.next_step exists, show error.next_step["handoff"] and its URL to the account owner verbatim and do not retry. error.action_url returns the URL for any action: checkout_url for subscribe, manage_url for upgrade, verify_url for email verification, or contact_url for sales and support. Show it alongside error.handoff. Upgrades point to the account page, where the owner opens the billing portal to change plan. error.checkout_url remains a shortcut for subscribe only.

except PokemonTcgApiError as error:
    if error.next_step:
        show_to_user(error.next_step["handoff"])

What this API does not have

Stated up front so you find out here rather than three days into an integration:

• No Korean cards. Zero KR sets, zero ko translations. Both are modelled in the schema and carry no data.
• Card game text is English, and uneven. attacks, abilities, weaknesses, resistances, subtypes, retreat_cost, rules and flavor_text carry rows since 3 September 2026, on the 20,725 Western printings. Measured on 16 September 2026 against 57,450 cards: attacks on 29.9% of the whole catalogue and 82.9% of the Western part, subtypes 35.0%, abilities 7.0%. Japanese and Chinese printings carry none. The types in this package keep them | None, so the type checker makes you handle the part that is absent.
• No format legalities. The card object has no legalities field and include rejects the value with a 400. If you are building a deck checker, this is not the data source you need.

What it does have: the printing itself — set, number, rarity, region, release date, illustrator, image, marketplace ids, names in eight locales — and prices.

Prices

card = client.cards.get("base1-4", include=["prices"])
for price in card.get("prices", []):
    print(price["source"], price["basis"], price["amount"], price["currency"], price["as_of"], price["sample_n"])

The dedicated price routes have their own methods, and they are the ones to use when prices are the point of the call:

prices = client.prices.card("base1-4")                                  # index + quotes, 2 credits
many = client.prices.current(["base1-4", "sv3-125"])                    # up to 50 ids, 4 credits per 25
history = client.prices.history("base1-4", bucket="week")               # 5 credits
stats = client.prices.stats("base1-4", window="30d")                    # 2 credits
movers = client.prices.movers(window="7d", direction="gainers")         # Growth and up
box = client.sealed.prices("evolving-skies-booster-box")

history is bounded by your plan (7 days on the trial, 30 on Developer, everything from Growth): a wider window raises UpgradeRequiredError, whose permitted_window says what you may ask for. Its date bounds are from_ and to (from is a reserved word in Python; it is sent as from). movers below Growth raises PlanRequiredError, and a trial past its 30 days raises TrialExpiredError on every route that costs credits. Both extend PermissionDeniedError.

There is no printing filter on include=["prices"]: first edition, holofoil and graded rows come back together, so read printing, condition and grading per row. basis separates GUIDE (published upstream) from DERIVED (computed by us). PTCG_INDEX is a composite index in EUR carrying sample_n, and the same number sits on the card row as index_eur wherever we have enough observations to compute one: 51,636 cards of 57,450 on 16 September 2026, so treat it as nullable. On a list or batch it comes with include=["index"] (1 credit per 50 rows), so a list still has a comparable number without a second request per card.

What your plan withholds is named rather than hidden, but it is named in three different places, so read the one that matches the call you made:

The values are graded and non_english_locales: a trial key gets both, Developer keeps graded, and from Growth up nothing is withheld, in which case the key is absent rather than an empty list. Read it before concluding that a card has no graded observations: it may be your plan, not the catalogue. Prices also carry their own locale, and a card read with include=["prices"] returns every locale your plan allows, so the currency does not tell you the language.

Credits and quota

Every response says what it cost. The SDK keeps the headers of the last one, and hands each one to on_response if you want a running total:

spent = 0

def count(info):
    global spent
    spent += info.credits_cost or 0

client = PokemonTcgApi(on_response=count)

client.cards.search(q="name:charizard", include=["index"])
print(client.last_response.credits_cost, client.last_response.quota_remaining)

The trial is 800 credits, once, for 30 days, with at most 400 spent in a day; trial_expires_at on the same object says when it ends.

The change feed

since = int(store.get("ptcg_since") or 0)
while True:
    page = client.changes(since=since, limit=500)
    for change in page["data"]:
        apply(change)  # kind, entity_id, op, version
    since = page["meta"]["next_since"]
    store.set("ptcg_since", since)
    if not page["meta"]["has_more"]:
        break

Also available

• TypeScript SDK: @pokemontcgapi/sdk — source
• Go SDK: go get github.com/pokemontcgapi/sdk-go — source
• MCP server for agents: @pokemontcgapi/mcp — source
• Docs: https://pokemontcgapi.com/docs
• Coverage, measured live: https://pokemontcgapi.com/coverage

Build from source

python -m venv .venv && . .venv/bin/activate   # .venv\Scripts\activate on Windows
pip install -e .[dev]
ruff check src tests && mypy src && pytest
python -m build

Python >= 3.10. pytest runs the offline suite in tests/ against the recorded responses in tests/fixtures/; PTCG_LIVE=1 PTCG_API_KEY=... python scripts/smoke_live.py runs a short check against the real API (about four credits). CI enforces lint, types and the suite on every supported Python, and that the built wheel installs and imports in a clean environment.

This package is developed inside the private monorepo that runs pokemontcgapi.com and mirrored here on each release, so a merged pull request travels back by hand rather than by merge button. That is not a reason to send patches elsewhere — open the issue or the PR here, it is the address that gets read. The prose of this README is kept identical to the TypeScript SDK's (synced from its README as of commit 86a725a); only the code differs.

Licence

MIT. Data served by the API carries per-source redistribution terms — see https://pokemontcgapi.com/legal/attribution.