Somewhere in the hold of a narrow-body jet right now, a small white disc is quietly telling its owner that the suitcase has made it to Lisbon, even though the passenger is still stuck in Frankfurt. A few metres away, in a row of overhead bins, a power bank the size of a bar of soap is sitting in a jacket pocket, and on certain airlines it is no longer allowed to be switched on. Both devices run on lithium, both are now a normal part of travel, and both are governed by rules that have changed more in the last twelve months than in the previous ten years. 🔋
The confusing part is that the rules do not agree with each other. A tracker that is welcome in your checked bag can sit next to a power bank that must never go in the hold. A "smart" suitcase that was perfectly fine in 2016 can be refused at the check-in desk today if its battery is built in. And an airline you flew with last spring may have changed its cabin policy since. This guide walks through nine battery-related rules that crews and ground staff actually enforce, what stands behind each one, and how to pack so that none of them ruins your trip.
A note on sources before we start: the global baseline comes from the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations (67th edition, applicable from 1 January 2026) and the ICAO Technical Instructions, but every airline is free to be stricter, and several are. Treat the numbers below as the baseline and your airline's own baggage page, checked a few days before departure, as the final word. ✈️
Part 1: Trackers in your luggage 📍
Luggage trackers are the least controversial battery in your bag, yet they generate the most anxious questions at the airport. The short version: small button-cell trackers are widely accepted, but the reasoning is worth understanding, because it explains where the line is drawn.
1. A button-cell tracker is generally fine in a checked bag, because the lithium content is tiny
The dangerous goods rules are written around two numbers: the lithium content of a battery (for lithium metal cells, measured in grams) and the energy rating of a lithium-ion battery (measured in watt-hours). A coin cell inside a typical Bluetooth tracker sits at the very bottom of both scales. The US aviation regulator has stated that trackers with 0.3 grams of lithium metal or less may travel in checked baggage, and IATA's current guidance for operators describes a similar tracker exception, quoted as under 0.3 g of lithium and under 2.7 Wh per device. The popular disc-shaped trackers are far below those limits.
Europe went through a short public argument about this in autumn 2022, when one large carrier first sent mixed messages and then confirmed, after talking to its national regulator, that low-power trackers in checked baggage do not pose a safety risk. Since then the practical position on most European carriers has been calm acceptance. The key word in the rules is "small": a tracker with a rechargeable battery pack, a built-in cellular modem or a larger cell is a different matter, and you should read the manufacturer's data sheet for the lithium or watt-hour figure before you tuck it into a bag.
What to do with this: use a standard coin-cell tracker, leave the battery in, and do not wrap it in anything that could be mistaken for a prohibited device. If you want certainty on a specific airline, search the carrier's "dangerous goods" or "restricted items" page for the word "tracker" before you fly. Most airlines that mention trackers at all say they are acceptable.
2. A tracker shows you where the bag is, not who is responsible for it
A tracker is genuinely useful, but it is worth being clear about what it does. It tells you that your suitcase is currently at a particular airport, in a particular building, sometimes in a particular corner of a particular building. It does not make the airline hand the bag over faster, and the location it reports is only as fresh as the last phone that walked past it. In the middle of a hold or a sorting hall there may be few phones, so the dot can lag behind reality by an hour or more.
The real value is in the claims process. When a bag is delayed, the first thing the baggage service desk asks is where it is, and a screenshot showing the bag sitting in the arrivals hall of the wrong airport shortens the conversation considerably. Treat the tracker as evidence, not as a tool. Take a screenshot with a visible timestamp, note the file reference printed on the baggage tag receipt, and attach both to the delayed-baggage report. To understand what actually happens between check-in and the carousel, the published piece on what really happens to your suitcase after check-in explains why bags get delayed and damaged in the first place.
3. Where you hide the tracker matters more than which one you buy
The best place for a tracker is inside the case, tucked into a lining pocket or a corner of the packing, rather than in an external pouch where it can be seen, pulled off or simply knocked away by a conveyor. A tracker that is visibly strapped to the handle is a tracker that a thief, or a careless handler, can detach in a few seconds.
There is also a radio issue. Bluetooth is a low-power signal and it does not like large amounts of metal or dense foil around it. A hard case with a polymer shell, as most modern travel hard cases have, lets the signal out without trouble. A bag lined with metallised insulation, or a tracker buried beneath a laptop and a pile of cables, will report less often. Put it near the edge of the packing, away from batteries and metal frames, and test it before departure: close the case, walk to the other side of the house and see how quickly it shows up on your phone.
A second tracker is worth considering for a bag that carries something important, such as camera kit or a business sample set, but keep it simple. Two trackers in two different places also give you a basic sanity check, because if one reports a location and the other does not, you know which one is blocked.
Part 2: Smart suitcases and the removable-battery rule 🧳
Smart luggage turned up in force around 2016 and 2017: suitcases with a built-in USB charging port, a GPS module, a digital scale, sometimes a motor that lets the bag follow you. Within a couple of years the aviation industry had decided what it thought about them, and the answer is still the rule that governs these bags today.
4. The industry rule: if the battery cannot come out, the bag does not fly (in the hold)
In 2018, IATA's Dangerous Goods Board restricted the carriage of smart luggage on the passenger aircraft of its member airlines. The principle was simple. A lithium battery that is fixed inside a checked bag cannot be inspected, cannot be removed if it fails, and sits in a cargo compartment where a fire is harder to deal with than in the cabin. So bags with a battery that cannot be taken out were refused as checked baggage, and bags with a removable battery were accepted, with the battery taken out and carried in the cabin.
Individual airlines implemented this in slightly different ways. Some accepted a smart bag in the cabin as hand luggage with the battery installed. Some required the battery to be removed in every case, even for hand luggage that might later be gate-checked. A few refused any smart bag whose battery was not removable, whatever the circumstances. The common thread is that the battery must be removable by the passenger, without tools, in a few seconds, because the person at the gate has no time to take apart a suitcase.
If you already own a smart suitcase, check the label inside the case or the manual for the battery type and its watt-hour rating. If it cannot be removed, treat the bag as cabin-only, and do not rely on being able to gate-check it. If you are buying one, look for a battery that clips out with one hand and is clearly labelled with its capacity.
5. At the gate, the battery comes out first and travels with you
The scenario that catches people is the last-minute gate check. The flight is full, the overhead bins are gone, and the agent at the gate tags your carry-on to go in the hold. If your bag has a battery, that is the moment it has to come out. The agent may ask, a colleague at the aircraft door may ask again, and the rule is not negotiable: the battery stays with you in the cabin, the bag goes below.
Make this painless by deciding in advance. Before you leave for the airport, find out how the battery is released, practise once at home, and keep the release tool, if one is needed, in an accessible pocket. A battery that you have to unscrew from a fixed compartment while a queue builds up behind you is a battery that will cost you your place on the flight or cost you the bag. Batteries are the first thing on any list of items to pull out before a gate check, ahead of medication, documents and valuables.
6. For most travellers, a plain hard case plus a coin-cell tracker is the simpler answer
Here is the honest comparison. A smart suitcase asks you to manage a battery: charge it, remember its watt-hour rating, remove it at the right moments and carry it separately. In return you get a charging port you can also replace with a 30-gram power bank, and a location feature a coin-cell tracker provides for a fraction of the effort. For a traveller who flies a few times a year, the maths rarely favours the smart bag.
A case with no electronics at all removes the whole category of rules. There is nothing to declare, nothing to remove at the gate, nothing that can fail and nothing that an agent can refuse. You then add the one electronic thing that is accepted almost everywhere, a small tracker, and you keep any larger battery, such as a power bank, in your jacket or personal item where you can see it. This is the approach we recommend to people who ask, and it is the reason the product blocks in this article are about shell and protection rather than about gadgets.
To be balanced: a smart bag is a legitimate choice if you value the integrated features and you are disciplined about the battery. It is just a choice that needs more attention than most people give it.
Cabin cases with no battery to manage 🧳
Part 3: Power banks and spare batteries 🔌
This is the part of the rulebook that has moved most, and the part where airlines now genuinely differ. If you read only one section of this article, make it this one.
7. The unmoving rule: spare batteries and power banks never go in checked baggage
Whatever else changes, one rule is stable: a power bank, a spare camera battery, a spare phone battery or any other loose lithium battery belongs in the cabin. IATA's regulations state that spare batteries, including power banks, are forbidden in checked baggage. The reason is not paperwork. A damaged lithium-ion cell can go into thermal runaway, and in the cabin a crew member can see and respond to it, whereas in a closed cargo hold a fire has to be fought with the aircraft's built-in systems.
The wording matters in one practical way. The rule is about spare batteries, meaning batteries that are not installed in a device. A laptop, camera or phone with its battery installed can travel in the hold under the regulations, usually switched fully off rather than asleep, although most travellers carry them in the cabin anyway, and you should too. A laptop in hibernation inside a bag that gets squeezed can wake, heat up and cause exactly the sort of incident the rule is meant to prevent.
Two practical reminders. First, if you are asked to gate-check a bag, take every power bank and loose battery out of it before you hand it over, because one forgotten bank turns a routine gate check into a delayed flight. Second, the same logic applies to e-cigarettes and vaping devices, which are classed with spare batteries and must stay in the cabin. Our existing guide on power banks in carry-on baggage covers the basics, and the broader article on what you can pack in checked baggage gives the full list of what is quietly restricted in the hold.
8. 2026 tightened the cabin rules: two power banks, and on some airlines no use at all
The biggest change for ordinary passengers is not about what you may carry but about what you may do with it. IATA's guidance to operators, issued alongside the 67th edition of its regulations, tells airlines to limit each passenger to two power banks for personal use and to prohibit recharging a power bank from the aircraft's own power during the flight. ICAO's updated instructions carry matching conditions with a 100 Wh ceiling, applicable from late March 2026. Some national regulators and carriers had been moving in this direction for months before the paperwork caught up.
Then there are the airlines that went further than the baseline. Lufthansa Group announced that from 15 January 2026 power banks may neither be used nor charged on board on any of its airlines, which include Lufthansa itself, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings, Brussels Airlines, Discover Airlines, Edelweiss and Air Dolomiti. Its published rules also cap a passenger at two power banks in cabin baggage, require them to be stored on the person, in the seat pocket or under the seat rather than in the overhead lockers, and forbid them in checked bags. Approved medical devices are exempt. Several airlines outside Europe, including Emirates and a number of Asian carriers, introduced similar in-flight bans in the second half of 2025 and in 2026, according to their own announcements and press coverage.
Other European carriers have kept looser policies, typically allowing a power bank to charge a device outside take-off and landing but still prohibiting the recharging of the bank itself. That patchwork is exactly why a generic answer fails. What you need is your own airline's current page, and it is worth looking at it again if you fly a different carrier on the return leg.
A practical consequence: if you use a power bank to keep a phone alive on a long flight, plan for the possibility that you will not be allowed to use it. Charge everything fully before you leave home, bring a short cable so you can use the seat's built-in USB port if the aircraft has one, and download your boarding pass, maps and entertainment in advance.
9. Know your watt-hours: 100 Wh is the line, 160 Wh needs permission
The capacity on a power bank is usually printed in milliamp-hours, but the rule is written in watt-hours. The conversion is simple: multiply the milliamp-hours by the nominal voltage (almost always 3.7 V for lithium-ion cells) and divide by 1,000. A 10,000 mAh bank is therefore about 37 Wh; a 20,000 mAh bank is about 74 Wh; a 27,000 mAh bank is roughly 100 Wh, right on the limit.
The general rule is that spare batteries up to 100 Wh travel in the cabin without special approval. Between 100 Wh and 160 Wh you need the airline's agreement, usually limited to two per passenger. Above 160 Wh the battery is a dangerous good, and you cannot carry it as a passenger at all. Some manufacturers print the Wh figure on the casing; if yours does not, work it out yourself and write it on a small label so that a security officer does not have to guess.
The same arithmetic applies to the batteries that photographers, drone pilots and film crews carry. A camera battery of 20 to 40 Wh is no issue, a V-mount battery for a cinema camera usually sits near or above 100 Wh and needs a conversation with the airline well before the day of travel, and a large drone pack should be checked against the same limits. If this is your situation, our published guide on travelling with hand luggage only on a business trip shows how to build a cabin bag around a single carry-on, and the article on flying with medication and medical devices explains how battery rules interact with CPAP machines and insulin pumps, which are treated differently from consumer gadgets.
How to carry a power bank so that nothing can go wrong
Even when it is allowed, a power bank in a loose pocket full of keys and coins is a short-circuit waiting to happen. Protect the terminals, keep the bank in a pouch or a small hard case, and do not wedge it into a seat pocket where the seat in front can crush it. A micro case of the Peli 1010 to 1060 range, a small waterproof case that keeps cables, a bank and a spare tracker battery together and protected from knocks, is a sensible home for these items between flights. If a bank is swollen, hot or smells of chemicals, do not take it on the aircraft at all. If a battery ever does start to smoke on board, tell the cabin crew immediately instead of trying to hide it or move it yourself; crews are trained and equipped to deal with it.
Checked-baggage hard cases for the hold 🛄
Part 4: Putting it into a packing routine 🎒
Rules are only useful if you can follow them at 5 a.m. in a departure hall with a queue behind you. The simplest way is to turn the three parts above into a routine you repeat before every flight. The checklist below is deliberately short, because a long checklist is one nobody uses.
The battery checklist for your next flight
- Tracker: coin-cell model, battery inside, tucked into the lining or the centre of the packing, tested on your phone before you close the case. Screenshot of the tracker and a photo of the bag tag receipt saved in your phone.
- Smart bag, if you own one: battery removable without tools, watt-hours checked, release practised once at home. Plan to carry the battery in the cabin whichever way the bag travels.
- Power banks: no more than two, each labelled with its watt-hours (100 Wh or less unless your airline has approved more), terminals protected, stored in the cabin where your airline's rules say they must be.
- Spare camera, drone and phone batteries: in the cabin, in individual pouches or the original cases, terminals taped or covered.
- Laptops, tablets, headphones and e-readers: in the cabin bag, fully switched off rather than asleep if they ever go in the hold.
- Vapes and e-cigarettes: in the cabin, never in a checked bag.
- Airline page: opened a few days before departure, and again for the return leg if it is operated by a different carrier.
- Charge before you leave: every device at 100 per cent, in case your airline forbids using a power bank in flight.
Two small additions are worth making. First, put your documents, a payment card and a tracker's spare battery together in one protected place, ideally a small hard case or an RFID-blocking wallet such as the Peli G5 RFID wallet, so that the things you cannot afford to lose are never spread across three pockets. Second, remember that anything you take out of a bag at the gate has to go somewhere. A cabin case with a sensible internal layout means the power bank, the passport and the boarding pass all have a fixed home, and you do not end up rummaging through a half-closed bag while the gate agent waits.
Why the case matters even when the rules are about batteries
It is tempting to treat the shell as irrelevant here, but it is not. A battery that is protected from crushing, moisture and short circuits is a battery that is less likely to cause a problem, and a hold is a rough place. Baggage is thrown, stacked and squeezed, and soft bags transmit those forces straight to whatever is inside. A rigid case spreads the load, keeps your devices and cables where you put them and, in the case of the cabin-sized Peli models above, fits the cabin limits of most carriers while being tough enough to survive a gate check if that is what the day throws at you. If you want to see which limits apply to cabin cases on your airline, the guide to avoiding baggage fees in 2026 walks through dimensions and weights, and the piece on what gets confiscated most often at European airports is a good last-minute check of your cabin bag.
When something goes wrong in a different way, for example when winter weather cancels your flight and you need to manage a long wait with a phone at 8 per cent, our published article on what to do in the first hour after a snow cancellation is useful, and a protected power bank in the cabin bag becomes the most valuable thing you own.
FAQ ❓
Can I put an AirTag or similar tracker in my checked bag?
In most cases, yes. Small coin-cell trackers fall far below the lithium thresholds in the dangerous goods guidance, and regulators and large carriers have accepted them in checked baggage. Larger trackers with rechargeable batteries or cellular modules are a separate case, so read the data sheet. If you want certainty, check your airline's baggage or dangerous goods page.
Is a smart suitcase allowed on a plane?
Yes, if the battery is removable. Since the 2018 IATA restriction, airlines expect the battery to come out so that it can travel in the cabin with you, while the empty bag goes in the hold. A smart bag with a non-removable battery is accepted by some airlines only as cabin baggage and refused by others altogether. Check the airline before you buy and again before you fly.
How many power banks can I carry, and how big can they be?
The global baseline is up to 100 Wh per bank without special approval, and between 100 Wh and 160 Wh with the airline's permission. From 2026, IATA and ICAO guidance points to two power banks per passenger. Some airlines, including all members of Lufthansa Group, have also banned using or charging power banks on board. Always check the policy of the airline you are flying with.
Can I charge my phone from a power bank during the flight?
It depends on the airline. Recharging the power bank itself from aircraft power is prohibited under the current IATA guidance, and some carriers ban any use of power banks on board. Others allow charging a device from a bank outside take-off and landing. Plan as if it will not be allowed, and be pleasantly surprised if it is.
What do I do if a battery overheats or smokes on board?
Tell a member of the cabin crew immediately. Crews carry fire containment equipment and are trained for exactly this situation. Do not try to hide the device, put it in a bag or move it yourself.
The short version 🔋
If you remember only a few lines: a small coin-cell tracker is welcome in your checked bag; a smart suitcase must have a battery that comes out; every spare battery and every power bank lives in the cabin, labelled and protected; and since 2026 you should expect to carry no more than two power banks and be prepared for an airline that does not let you use them at all. Pack for the strictest airline you might meet, and the rest of the rules take care of themselves. Safe travels, and may your bag arrive on the same plane as you. ✈️
