The Edit — Travel
AirTag in Checked Luggage: What the FAA Allows
The FAA lists trackers by name and allows them in checked bags up to 0.3 grams of lithium. An AirTag's CR2032 holds about 0.109, so it clears the limit roughly threefold.
This guide is research-led: we have not handled these units ourselves. If you buy through our links we may earn a commission — it never changes a pick. How we choose
Nothing here was flown or tested. The rules are the FAA’s own, read on 23 September 2026, and How we choose sets out the method.
The FAA names trackers specifically
PackSafe, the FAA’s guidance for passengers, has a row for location trackers that names AirTags and Tile. They are allowed in both carry-on and checked baggage, with one condition: lithium content not over 0.3 grams, or a lithium-ion rating not over 2.7 watt-hours.
An AirTag runs on a CR2032 coin cell. Energizer’s datasheet for that cell puts its lithium content at 0.109 grams, roughly a third of the limit. The tag clears the rule with room to spare.
| What you are packing | Carry-on | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| AirTag or Tile in the bag | Yes | Yes, at 0.3 g lithium or less |
| Spare CR2032 cells, loose | Yes | No, carry-on only |
| Power bank or portable charger | Yes | No, carry-on only |
| Phone, laptop, camera | Yes | Yes, powered off and protected |
The rule that catches people is the second row. A tag installed in a bag is fine; loose spare batteries are carry-on only, and so is every power bank, whatever its size.
Airlines can be stricter than the FAA
The FAA sets the floor at 0.3 grams of lithium, and carriers add their own rules on top. Check the airline’s dangerous goods page before a trip, especially outside the US, where the operator’s policy rather than the FAA’s is what the check-in desk applies.
Nothing in the FAA guidance requires you to declare a tracker or to switch it off, because a coin-cell tracker is not the hazard a lithium-ion pack is.
What the map will actually show you
An AirTag has no GPS and no cellular radio. It sends a Bluetooth signal that nearby Apple devices pick up and relay to iCloud, and Apple’s network spans more than a billion devices.
In practice that means a bag goes quiet in a cargo hold and reappears when it reaches a terminal full of phones. You get a trail of points rather than a live line: the gate, the baggage hall, the van. That is enough to tell you whether a bag made the transfer, which is the question most travellers are asking.
Precision Finding, the part that walks you to within a few feet, only works when you are near the tag and holding an Ultra Wideband iPhone. It is what finds a bag sitting behind a counter in the lost luggage office, not what finds a bag 2,000 miles away.
Where to put it in the bag
Bury it in the middle of soft contents rather than in an outside pocket. Bluetooth carries better than most people expect from inside a case, and an outside pocket is the first thing opened.
If the bag is hard-sided, tuck the tag into a packing cube near the top layer. Packing cubes and compression covers how that packing works, and the tracker itself is profiled in Apple AirTag (2nd Generation), including the louder speaker that matters in the lost luggage office. For the drive to the airport instead, the winter car emergency kit is the list that matters.