When did McDonald's start giving out Pokémon cards?

McDonald's came to Pokémon in stages. Regional campaigns ran first, spinning tops in France and action toys in Japan around the 2001 to 2002 New Year, and a further toy line in 2006, without trading cards. The card era began in Japan with a nine-card "collection sheets" run in late 2010, and went worldwide in June 2011, when North American Happy Meals carried the first McDonald's Collection: twelve holographic cards bundled with eight toys. It set the template the chain still uses: a small, all-holo, kid-priced set, new almost every year.

The collections ran annually through the decade, 2012 to 2019, took 2020 off, and returned in February 2021 with the set everyone remembers: 25 cards for the 25th anniversary, the first partner Pokémon of all eight generations plus Pikachu, every card printed in both non-holo and a "confetti" holo version, four cards to a pack with one holo in each. Sets followed in 2022, 2023 and 2024 on staggered international windows, and a new 15-card set has been announced for November 2026: forty years into the franchise's life, the Happy Meal is still a distribution channel.

For scale, remember who came first. Pokémon's fast food history opens at KFC in November 1998, where seven promo cards, Ivysaur, Charizard, Pikachu, Onix, Scyther, Snorlax and Dragonite, went on sale with beanbag plush weeks before the American Base Set existed. The restaurant card is older than the American game itself.