The Pokemon Company has teamed up with Japan’s LY Corporation to introduce new resale restrictions for Pokémon cards. Beginning October 13, 2026, Yahoo! JAPAN Auction and Yahoo! JAPAN Flea Market will prohibit listings for certain types of packaged products and restrict sellers from posting large quantities of the same item shortly after release. The measures are intended to curb stockpiling and inflated resale prices.
According to an announcement from LY Corporation, sellers are now explicitly prohibited from listing cards by the sealed shipping case, meaning multiple booster boxes may not be kept inside their wholesale carton and resold as a single listing. Empty booster boxes and opened card wrappers are also prohibited, further tightening controls on packaging-related sales.
The platforms will also restrict bulk listings of identical products shortly after their release, beginning with the Pokémon cards 30th CELEBRATION series. The companies hope the policy will make it more difficult for resellers to buy up newly launched products and immediately flip them for profit, reducing the impact of large-scale stockpiling on the market.
However, this does not amount to a blanket ban on reselling Pokémon cards in Japan. Individual cards and other compliant products can still be traded as usual. The restrictions primarily target sealed shipping cases, empty packaging, and bulk listings of selected new releases.
Mercari had already introduced temporary restrictions in September covering unopened 30th CELEBRATION products, and LY Corporation’s platforms have now followed with their own measures. Comparable policies have yet to be introduced in many markets outside Japan, where sites such as eBay continue to carry card listings priced above their suggested retail value.
Prices for both new and vintage Pokémon cards have continued to climb in recent years, fueling stockpiling and speculation while also contributing to incidents involving shoplifting and store break-ins. Whether this coordinated action between the rights holder and resale platforms can curb scalping and ease supply-and-demand pressures across the card market remains to be seen.