Nintendo announced on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, that the Mario Kart Tour mobile game will be permanently retired on September 30 at 2am ET. After seven years of operation, the title will not have an offline version, unlike what happened with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, another mobile game that the company discontinued in the past. This means that once shut down, Mario Kart Tour will cease to exist forever.
As part of the process, the company has already stopped the sale of the game’s digital currency and ended automatic renewals and new subscriptions for the Gold Pass, a package that offers additional rewards and challenges. Paying Gold Pass subscribers will have free access to most of its benefits (excluding “ongoing subscription benefits”) until closing. Non-subscribed players will be able to enjoy the same benefits at no cost starting August 5th, also at 2am ET.
The closure of Mario Kart Tour was already expected, as the game had been in “maintenance mode” since the end of 2023. At that time, Nintendo had stopped releasing new circuits, characters, karts, gliders and other content updates.
Despite the deactivation of Mario Kart Tour, Nintendo continues to operate in the mobile games market. The company recently launched Pictonico!, a WarioWare-style game, and maintains titles such as Super Mario Run, available for almost a decade, Fire Emblem Heroes and Fire Emblem Shadows, released last year. Other popular games, such as Pokémon Go – which celebrated its 10th anniversary this week – and Pikmin Bloom, remain active but are not directly operated by Nintendo.
