Opening a Card Shop: What 1,734 Shops and the Card Makers Tell You

There are 1,734 card shops in our directory as of October 8, 2026. Their stock, their opening hours and what they run besides a sales counter describe the market a new shop joins, and the companies that make the cards set their own rules before they will sell to you. This guide puts the two side by side: our directory's numbers, and the requirements Pokémon, Wizards of the Coast, Konami, Panini, Topps and Upper Deck publish for shops.

What the shops in our directory carry

Each listing is tagged with the categories the shop advertises. Across the 1,734:

Card games lead. 1,006 shops (58.0%) list trading card games and no sports, 478 (27.6%) list both, 236 (13.6%) list sports cards and no card games, and 14 list neither. Pokémon alone appears on four listings in five. A shop planning to sell only sports cards would be in the smallest group in our directory, not the largest.

These tags record what a shop advertises, not how its sales divide, so a shop tagged for baseball may sell far more Pokémon than baseball.

What they do besides sell cards

1,066 shops (61.5%) are tagged for events. The services shops write on their own listings are free text, so we counted a listing once if any of its service phrases contains the term, ignoring case and accents and including compound phrases such as "Buy/Sell/Trade" or "Collection Appraisals":

• buying and selling: 1,540 listings (88.8%); trade-ins: 907 (52.3%)
• tournament hosting: 492 (28.4%)
• appraisals: 371 (21.4%)
• grading submissions: 235 (13.6%)
• Pokémon League: 117 (6.7%); prerelease events: 79 (4.6%); Friday Night Magic: 73 (4.2%)

310 shops are tagged for help with PSA grading.

Opening hours

1,715 shops list a full week of hours we can count. Their median is 52.5 hours a week. 1,439 of them (83.9%) are open at least 40 hours, and 1,557 (90.8%) at least 35, which matters for the manufacturer rules below. Monday is the day most often closed: 76% of those shops open on Mondays and 78% on Sundays, against 97% to 99% from Wednesday through Saturday.

Where they are

California has 249 shops in our directory, Texas 221, Florida 116, Arizona 66 and New York 62; those five states hold 41.2% of the total. The listings cover 561 cities, and 210 of those cities have a single shop.

Against the Census Bureau's estimates of state population for July 1, 2025 (Census Bureau, Vintage 2025), our directory has about 5.1 shops per million residents nationally. The highest counts per million are in Alaska (13.6), Hawaii (10.5), Wyoming (10.2) and North Dakota (10.0); among the states the lowest are Vermont (1.6), New Jersey (2.4) and Rhode Island (2.7).

Read those figures with care. They count the shops we have found and checked, and we are still filling in some large metro areas, so a low number can mean a gap in our listings as easily as a gap in the market. Before reading anything into a state figure, look at the city pages for the places you are considering and at the shops that are already there.

Getting product: what the makers ask of a shop

Pokémon. Joining the Play! Pokémon Store program costs nothing. Pokémon asks for a commercial venue that qualifies as a retailer, with a cashier desk, product shelving, a store window and exterior signage, open to the public during regular daytime hours, selling current or recent sealed Pokémon TCG product, with seating for at least 8 players. To run Prereleases or other tournaments, the owner or a staff member has to become an Organizer through Pokémon's Professor Program, which includes an exam and, where required, a background check. Newly approved stores can run Prereleases straight away, subject to the Prerelease registration window; League Challenges and League Cups need accurate reporting in two of the three most recent League seasons (Play! Pokémon event requirements; Run a Play! Pokémon Store & Host Events).

Magic: The Gathering. The Wizards Play Network asks that applications come only from stores that are already open, not under construction and not inside another business. The application includes a video walkthrough showing exterior signage, at least four displays of Magic product from the last two years and a play space seating eight or more, plus proof of ownership; once assigned to a reviewer, complete applications are typically processed in 1–3 business days (WPN). Promo support then scales with the store's Magic community, from 4 to 26 promo packs a week (WPN).

Yu-Gi-Oh!. Konami's Official Tournament Store program requires a physical location with space for at least 16 players, judges for events and post-event reports, and stores buy through Konami's own business ordering site, where the minimum order is one case. Those terms come from the qualifying-criteria questions and terms on Konami's OTS application form (ots-portal.konami.com, which requires an account); Konami's public OTS program page points to it.

Panini. A direct account requires a brick-and-mortar store open at least six months and at least 40 hours a week, with sports cards making up 70% of the store's gross sales; orders are full cases only and subject to allocation, and new accounts are reviewed quarterly (Panini's 2026 direct application). The form also asks which Panini authorized distributors a shop already buys from. Tags do not show sales mix, but only 236 shops in our directory (13.6%) advertise no card games at all.

Topps. Fanatics, which owns Topps, says it is not accepting applications from retail stores or hobby shops for any of its direct account programs, and that there is no alternative application route; accounts approved before January 13, 2026 continue (Fanatics Collect Pro).

Upper Deck. To become a Certified Diamond Dealer, a shop needs a brick-and-mortar location open at least 35 hours a week and must not sell sealed hobby product online for the first 180 days after its release. Upper Deck sends inquiries to its authorized U.S. distributors: GTS Distribution, Southern Hobby, Universal Distribution and Magazine Exchange (Upper Deck).

The hours rules are the easy part: most shops in our directory already clear both Panini's 40 hours and Upper Deck's 35. The storefront, the play space and, for Panini, the sales mix are where a new shop has to plan.

Grading as a service

A shop that wants to take customers' cards to PSA under PSA's name needs the PSA Dealer Program, which licenses a dealer to take in customers' cards on PSA's behalf and collect PSA's fees. Applicants go through a formal background check, and PSA disqualifies anyone with a felony conviction in the last five years, or who has spent less than $25,000 a year (the FAQ does not say on what) (PSA's FAQ, archived September 30, 2026). Our guide to getting cards graded locally covers the customer's side.

The paperwork

A federal Employer Identification Number is free from the IRS, which warns that "You never have to pay a fee for an EIN" (IRS). Most states require a business to register with the Secretary of State's office or a similar agency, and which licenses and permits you need depends on your state, county and city (SBA). A permit to collect sales tax comes from the state; Texas, for example, asks anyone selling tangible goods in the state to apply and allows two to three weeks for the permit (Texas Comptroller).

Getting listed

If your shop is already in our directory, you can claim the listing. New shops are added through our list your shop page, which is a paid Premium listing at $29 a month.

How we counted

All directory figures are from the 1,734 active listings on October 8, 2026. Category shares come from each listing's tags. Service counts come from the services each listing names, counting a listing once if any phrase contains the term, ignoring case and accents. Weekly hours come from the 1,715 listings with all seven days filled in, leaving out the ten that say "by appointment" or "call ahead" and one listed as closed every day. Per-million figures divide our state counts by the Census Bureau's July 1, 2025 estimates.

Manufacturer requirements are quoted from the pages linked. Most were read on October 8, 2026; the two Pokémon pages are Wayback Machine copies from August 27 and September 17, 2026, because pokemon.com blocks automated reading, and the Konami terms come from its account-only application portal. Programs change, so check the current version before applying.

Back to: How to Find the Best Card Shop Near You →