How Many Pokémon Types Are There?

18. That has been the answer since October 2013, when Pokémon X and Y launched on the Nintendo 3DS. But '18' sounds like a fact of the universe. It isn't. Three of those eighteen types — Dark, Steel, and Fairy — only exist because Game Freak realised the chart was broken and shipped fixes. The Pokémon type system isn't natural law. It's iteratively-debugged software.

The Gen 1 evidence is in the game itself

The original 1996 chart had 15 types and at least one outright bug. In the Saffron City Gym, an in-game trainer tells the player: "Psychic Pokémon fear only ghosts and bugs." Nintendo's own official strategy guides agreed — Ghost-type moves were supposed to be super-effective against Psychic-type Pokémon. The game's actual code didn't match. In Gen 1, Ghost-type moves did zero damage to Psychic-type Pokémon. The NPC was telling the truth about how the game was meant to work. The code didn't.

The bug had competitive consequences. Without working Ghost-vs-Psychic, Psychic types had almost no counter, and Mewtwo and Alakazam ran the meta. Gen 2 (Pokémon Gold and Silver, 1999 in Japan / 2000 internationally) shipped the patch: added the Dark type, added the Steel type, fixed Ghost so it actually hits Psychic super-effectively. Dark hits Psychic too. Steel resists most things. Together they ended Psychic's dominance.

Here is the current chart as a tappable matchup explorer. Tap any attacking type to see how much damage it deals to each of the 18 defending types.

The 12-year gap, then Fairy

From 2000 (Gen 2) to 2013 (Gen 6) the type chart stayed at 17. Game Freak iterated on the systems around the chart — abilities in Gen 3, natures and EVs in Gen 3, the physical/special split in Gen 4 — but didn't add any new types for twelve years.

Fairy, when it arrived in X/Y, was Game Freak admitting Dragon had become overpowered. Dragon types from Gen 3 onwards had too few weaknesses and too much offensive output, and the existing counters (Ice, Dragon itself) were insufficient. The fix shipped in 2013: 22 existing Pokémon were retyped to include Fairy. Snubbull, Marill, Gardevoir, Mawile, Jigglypuff, Mr. Mime, Clefairy — all of them got reclassified. Fairy moves are super-effective against Dragon, Dark, and Fighting. Fairy-type Pokémon take zero damage from Dragon moves.

It worked. It worked a little too well. A meaningful slice of the competitive community now considers Fairy the new overpowered type, since the only counters (Poison and Steel) have historically been weak offensively. The Gen 6 fix became the new imbalance — which is the running theme of every type chart change.

The TCG quietly diverged in 2020

One footnote that catches card players off guard: starting with the Sword & Shield era of the Pokémon Trading Card Game in 2020, the Fairy type was discontinued as a card type. Pokémon that are Fairy-type in the video games are now printed as Psychic-type cards. The video games kept the 18-type chart. The TCG went back to 17. (More on the post-2020 TCG era on our Pokémon card sets page.)

So is 18 the final number?

18 since 2013 is now the longest period of type-chart stability since Gen 1. That doesn't mean it can't change. Game Freak shipped Terastallization in Gen 9 (Scarlet and Violet, November 2022) — a mechanic that lets any Pokémon temporarily reassign its type mid-battle. Whether that's an alternative to a 19th type or a prelude to one is anyone's guess. So far Game Freak has resisted adding more types and put its energy into mechanics that change existing matchups instead.

18 types. 15 are originals. 2 are Gen 2 patches. 1 is a Gen 6 patch. None of them are sacred. The chart has always been the most-edited part of Pokémon, and probably isn't done yet.