McDonald's Pokemon Happy Meal 2026: all 15 toys, the cards and the December 14 end date

McDonald's Pokémon Happy Meal is back in the US. It started on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, at participating restaurants nationwide, and The Pokémon Company lists the run through Monday, December 14, 2026, while supplies last. Every meal comes in one of three boxes themed after Pikachu, Umbreon or Torchic and holds one of 15 collectible toys, each a miniature Happy Meal box shaped like a Pokémon, plus two Pokémon Trading Card Game cards from a 15-card set that includes seven foils. A QR code on the box opens a digital game where kids hunt for all 15 toys in a virtual classroom and playground.

That is the whole offer in one paragraph. The details matter more than usual this time, because the 2026 promotion breaks with earlier American runs in several ways: there is a toy in every bag, the card pack is smaller and the set is built around a different idea. Here is what is in the box, how the cards work, how long the run lasts and how it fits into the year The Pokémon Company has spent marking the franchise's 30th birthday.

When does the McDonald's Pokémon Happy Meal start and end?

The US run opened on November 10, 2026. McDonald's announced it that day on its own menu news page, which says the Pokémon Happy Meal returns to participating restaurants nationwide with 15 collectible toys and 15 collectible trading cards. The Pokémon Company's US announcement gives the end date, December 14, 2026, which makes this a five-week promotion that runs straight through Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Two phrases in the official wording are worth reading closely. "Participating" means not every McDonald's has to take part. "While supplies last" means a restaurant can run out of toys or cards before December 14, so the end date is the latest a meal can turn up, not a promise that every restaurant will still have one.

McDonald's hasn't published a Happy Meal price for the promotion, and its announcement doesn't mention a surcharge, so expect to pay what your local restaurant charges for any Happy Meal.

All 15 Pokémon Happy Meal toys

Each meal holds one toy, and every toy in the 2026 set takes the same form: a small replica of a Happy Meal box, made to look like a Pokémon. The Pokémon Company lists the collection in this order:

The list reaches across almost every generation of the main games, from the original Kanto trio to Sprigatito, the Grass-type first partner from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Six of the 15 come from the first games, which fits a promotion that lands in the franchise's anniversary year. Three of the toys also have their own outer box: Pikachu, Umbreon and Torchic are the faces of the three Happy Meal box designs, so a family that wants a matching set of box and toy will need some luck.

There is no official word on how evenly the 15 toys are spread across shipments, and neither company has said whether any toy is rarer than the others. The toys come sealed, so the one you get is a surprise. The QR code on the outer box doesn't change that: it opens the digital hide-and-seek game, not a way to pick a toy.

What Pokémon cards come in the 2026 Happy Meal?

Every 2026 Happy Meal includes two Pokémon Trading Card Game cards. The set has 15 cards in total, and seven of them are foil, the shiny finish collectors chase. Neither McDonald's nor The Pokémon Company has published the full card list on the pages that announce the promotion, so the exact Pokémon on the cards, and which seven get the foil treatment, will only be clear as families open their meals.

The two-card pack is the biggest change for collectors. Both booster-pack promotions, in 2021 and 2025, put four cards in every meal. Halving the pack means a full 15-card set takes more meals to complete, on paper at least eight even with perfect luck, and in practice many more, since duplicates are certain.

The trade-off is that this year's meal carries a toy as well as the cards, so each visit adds something to two collections at once.

How the Happy Meal QR code game works

The box itself is part of the promotion. McDonald's says each Pokémon Happy Meal box carries a QR code, the square barcode a phone camera reads, and scanning it opens a digital game. The game hides all 15 toys around a virtual classroom and a virtual playground, and the goal is to find every one of them.

That gives the promotion a second collection that doesn't depend on which toy came out of the bag. A child who opens Weedle three times in a row can still find Pikachu, Umbreon and the rest on screen. McDonald's hasn't said whether the game needs an account, whether progress is saved between visits or whether it stays online after December 14, so treat it as a bonus that lives on the phone for the length of the run.

Parents who would rather keep a phone out of it lose nothing physical: the toy and the two cards are in every meal either way.

Is the Pokémon Happy Meal different in Canada?

Canada has its own version. The Pokémon Company's Canadian announcement lists a 15-toy promotion that runs through November 30, 2026, two weeks before the US run ends. Quebec gets a different bag again: the box-shaped toys aren't offered there, and families receive a Pokémon sticker and a booster pack with four Pokémon TCG cards instead.

So a Quebec meal holds more cards than a US one, four against two, but no toy. For US collectors, the practical point is simple: the American set is the toy-and-two-cards version, and nothing in the official US announcement mentions the sticker or the four-card pack.

For other countries, neither company has published dates on the pages that announce the North American runs, so anything you see about a European or Asian launch comes from outside McDonald's and The Pokémon Company.

How the 2026 Happy Meal compares with 2021 and 2025

McDonald's and The Pokémon Company have teamed up on American Happy Meals several times. In 2022 and 2023 the meals carried Pokémon TCG: Match Battle, a simplified way to play the card game, with runs that ended in mid-September 2022 and on October 16, 2023. The two booster-pack promotions, in 2021 and 2025, make the cleaner comparison with this year's set.

The 2021 set was the largest by far. Its four-card boosters drew from 25 Pokémon, the 24 first partners from every region up to that point plus Pikachu, and each card came in a standard and a foil version, which doubled the set to 50 cards. Every card carried the 25th anniversary logo.

The January 2025 run started on Tuesday, January 21, 2025, and focused on Dragon-type Pokémon. Its four box designs featured Charizard, Pikachu with Dragonite, Rayquaza and Roaring Moon, and each meal held a four-card booster drawn from a 15-card set, a Pokémon poster and a sheet of stickers to decorate it. Ordering through the McDonald's app also unlocked a free bonus in Pokémon TCG Pocket, the phone version of the card game. The Pokémon Company listed it as running until late February 2025.

Against those two, 2026 is the most toy-focused of the three and the lightest on cards. It is also the only one of the three to run through the holidays rather than early in the year.

Is the Happy Meal part of Pokémon's 30th anniversary?

The timing lines up, but the official wording keeps its distance. Neither the McDonald's announcement nor The Pokémon Company's US post calls the 2026 Happy Meal a 30th anniversary product, a contrast with 2021, when the anniversary was the theme of the whole promotion.

The anniversary itself is the backdrop for the whole year. On February 4, 2026, The Pokémon Company International announced a yearlong campaign to mark 30 years of the franchise, opening with a commercial during Super Bowl LX on February 8, 2026. The company tied the milestone to Pokémon Day, February 27, the date Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green launched in Japan in 1996. Kenji Okubo, president of The Pokémon Company International, called the fan community the foundation of the brand and invited Trainers to celebrate as the company looks to "the next 30 years and beyond."

Read against that, the Happy Meal's toy list looks like a deliberate sampler. It opens with the first three partners and Pikachu from 1996 and ends with Sprigatito, so a full set spans almost the entire history of the main series. Whether McDonald's planned it as an anniversary tribute or simply as a strong holiday promotion, the effect for a collector is the same.

Tips for collecting the full 2026 set

The official rules are short, so most of collecting comes down to timing and patience:

• Go in the first weeks. Stock decides how long a given restaurant keeps the meal, and a location that sells out has no promise of a restock.
• Call ahead. Asking whether a location takes part, and whether it still has toys, saves a wasted trip with kids in the car.
• Trade with friends. Duplicates are a certainty with a set this size, and swapping cards or toys finishes a collection faster than buying more meals.
• Keep the outer boxes. Flattened, they take up almost no space, and a complete run of the three designs is part of the set for many collectors.
• Store foils flat. A card sleeve or a simple binder page keeps the shiny cards from curling, which matters if the set is ever traded.

What else is happening in games this November

The Happy Meal lands in one of the busiest months of the gaming year. Grand Theft Auto VI arrives on November 19, and we have the exact GTA 6 unlock time for every US time zone. Subscribers also have new games to claim: our guides to Game Pass in November 2026 and the free games on Steam this month list what is in and what is leaving.

For Pokémon fans, the Happy Meal is the easiest way to pick up something new from the series this month, and the only one that comes with fries.