I guess it’s that time of the year where mobile games announce their end of service. Following Square Enix’s announcement that Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis is shutting down, Nintendo has now announced that Mario Kart Tour will end service on September 29, 2026, at 11:00 PM Pacific (2:00 AM Eastern on September 30). The shutdown comes four days after the seventh anniversary of the mobile kart racer, which launched on iOS and Android back in September 2019.
Ruby sales were switched off immediately, cut at 11:00 PM Pacific on July 7 (2:00 AM Eastern on July 8) in conjunction with the announcement. Any rubies still sitting in accounts remain spendable in the Spotlight Shop, Mii Racing Suit Shop, and Coin Rush right up until service ends.
As for the Gold Pass, the game’s $4.99 a month subscription, it’s effectively going free for everyone on the way out. Nintendo stopped all automatic renewals and new subscriptions during maintenance on July 7, and anyone whose subscription extended past that point, including players mid-free-trial, keeps their benefits at no charge through the end of service. Everyone else gets access starting with the Vacation Tour on August 4 at 11:00 PM Pacific (2:00 AM Eastern on August 5), no subscription history required.
The free window carries nearly the full benefit list: Gold Gifts, Gold Challenges, 200cc races, doubled daily caps on base points and coins, a multiplayer pipe gauge that fills twice as fast, and a multiplayer grade cap raised to S+9. The only exclusion is the continuous subscription benefits, which stopped entirely on July 7. Nintendo says no extra steps are required to claim any of it, and the benefits carry across operating systems as long as you’re on the same save data.
Mario Kart Tour has effectively been idling for years at this point, with Nintendo ending new content updates back in October 2023 and cycling through repeated tours ever since. The game now joins Dragalia Lost and Dr. Mario World among Nintendo’s retired mobile efforts, a list that keeps growing as the company’s mobile ambitions have cooled.
The final stretch at least leans in players’ favor, with the Vacation Tour opening the free Gold Pass window for everyone on August 4 and all content staying live through September 29. Nintendo’s kart racing attention now sits with Mario Kart World, which launched alongside Switch 2 last June and is still receiving regular updates.
