Pokemon Go: What are the effects of a soft ban and how long do they last?

A Pokemon Go soft ban will prevent you from catching Pokemon and looting Pokestops, but what’s the duration for one? How long does it last?

The duration of a Pokemon Go Soft ban

Soft bans in Pokemon Go are given out for the likes of GPS spoofing (Faking your location), Traveling too fast, or sharing accounts.

If you’ve ever been a passenger in a vehicle while playing Pokemon Go – such as on a bus or a moving car – you are effectively experiencing a brief soft ban, as the effects are quite similar. Though these ones are simply aimed to prevent people from trying to drive and play at the same time, rather than a serious punishment you need to worry about.

If you get yourself a real soft ban, however, you can expect the soft ban duration to be around 12 hours in Pokemon Go.

You should also be aware that based on Niantic Policy, you’ll be in a lot more trouble if you get yourself repeated soft bans after that first one – the third offence is likely to be permanent, for example. No more soft or shadow bans at that point.

Don’t worry about Pokemon disappearing while travelling in a car or something similar though, those mini soft bans don’t count towards that at all. They’re actually just non-specific duration soft bans used to hide Pokemon to stop people from playing the game while driving and racking up the egg kilometres.

Effects of a Soft ban in Pokemon Go

• Pokemon will instantly flee the encounter screen when you attempt to catch them, if they appear at all
• You cannot loot from Pokestops, spins will do nothing as if you had reached the spin limit

READ MORE: Pokemon Go: What are Sponsored gifts, how do I get them?

Some types of these timed bans are also believed to hide rare Pokemon from you for their duration and potentially for a while afterwards as well, to add a bit more salt to the wound.

Curiously there don’t seem to be any described effects on raids or Gym fights when I was looking into this, though perhaps those will be treated like other Pokemon while your device is affected by a soft ban, making you unable to interact with raid bosses too.

Gifts, Quests and Quest rewards might work as usual in the case of claiming items such as a berry or Pokeball, though you might want to wait before you claim any Pokemon encounter ones, as they might also run away instantly.

Is there anything else?

Outside of the first Pokemon Go soft ban set duration, Niantic operates a three-strike system, though reserves the right to escalate upwards and skip the strikes if the cheating or offence is severe enough.

Violating the given terms of service for your Pokemon Go account by the download and use of gps spoofer apps or other unofficial software can cause anything from a temporary ban like these to an outright banned account. Niantic is unlikely to allow an unban or appeal process in cases where third parties software has adjusted or changed the gameplay experience of Pokémon go, so be careful employing the likes of fake GPS software.

The first strike is described as a warning and is likely to come attached to a soft ban, like the type we’ve discussed here.

That’s really all you need to know about the duration of a soft ban in Pokemon Go. If you’d be interested, you can find further Pokemon Go articles, stories, and guides on The Click right here, and more pieces written by me personally here.