Understanding Cooldown (Wait Times)

In the Pokémon GO experience, understanding the cooldown mechanism completely is essential to ensure your account's security and avoid potential restrictions (such as a Soft Ban). This mechanism takes into account the reasonable travel time that a player could physically cover in the real world. Cooldown time is the waiting period required for the servers to verify and secure your account after teleporting or fast traveling between two different in-game locations.

Waiting times vary depending on the distance of the action you are performing. As a general rule, you should wait 1 to 5 minutes for distances between 0 and 10 kilometers, 10 to 30 minutes for distances between 10 and 100 kilometers, 30 to 45 minutes for distances between 100 and 250 kilometers, and 2 hours for very long distances over 1,000 kilometers. If you are traveling between continents or are not exactly sure about the distance, you should always apply the 2-hour maximum waiting time as a safety measure.

The basic actions that trigger and reset the cooldown period include attempting to catch a Pokémon, throwing a Pokéball or using a berry, spinning a PokéStop or Gym disc, placing a Pokémon in a Gym, or starting a Gym battle. Safe actions that do not affect the cooldown time include things that do not require entering the encounter screen—such as navigating the map and viewing IV values by clicking on Pokémon—as well as hatching eggs or completing tasks.

To ensure your account's safety while sniping, you should keep track of the time of your last active action before teleporting and start the timer from that moment. When applying the rule of waiting for the Pokémon on the encounter screen, keeping your device's screen on, not rushing, and keeping the game running in the background rather than constantly closing and reopening it is the safest way to protect positional synchronization and account security. Patience is key to a successful gaming experience.

• 0–10 km: 1–5 minutes.
• 100–250 km: 30–45 minutes.
• 1000+ km: 2 hours.