IDTechEx has been researching the RFID industry for nearly two decades. “RFID Forecasts, Players, and Opportunities 2026-2036” is the most recent RFID market research study, offering a thorough review of passive RFID (for UHF, HF, and LF bands), battery assisted passive, active RFID, and chipless RFID technologies, players, and markets. This report provides an unbiased analysis of primary data gathered through interviews with key players throughout the value chain (many of whom supply data to IDTechEx under non-disclosure agreements that allows aggregation of the data into a total) as well as secondary data from all available sources, and it builds on IDTechEx’s RFID industry expertise. This report provides in-depth forecasts and analysis that no other source can match.
Current market and outlook
The future of RFID is looking bright, the global RFID market is expected to expand further in 2025; according to IDTechEx, the market will be worth US$15.6 billion in 2025, up from US$15 billion in 2024. This comprises RFID labels, cards, fobs, and any other form factors, as well as tags, readers, and software/services for both passive and active RFID.
In the UHF sector, the retail business, the largest RFID application sector in terms of tag numbers, adopting RFID continues to grow strongly. According to IDTechEx study, retail apparel alone will require over 31 billion RFID tags in 2025 – though there is still some way to go, with RFID accounting for only about 40% of the total addressable market for apparel. Furthermore, IDTechEx anticipates that the general retail market will continue to grow driven by mandates such as Walmart’s on tagging retail items other than apparel. This is anticipated to continue to generate significant volume growth for the sector.
Contactless card sales remain the most successful in the HF sector, driven primarily by contactless payment, transit, and secure access applications, with 3.14 billion cards anticipated to be demanded in 2025. However IDTechEx expects a decrease in demand for this as mobile wallets continue to replace contactless cards.
Animal tagging (such as pigs, sheep, and pets) remains important in the LF sector because it is still a legal requirement in many more areas, with around 930 million tags expected to be used in this sector in 2025.
Overall, IDTechEx forecasts that around 55 billion passive RFID tags will be sold in 2025, up from 50 billion in 2024, indicating a 10% year on year increase. The bulk of this growth is due to passive UHF RFID labels.
However, in 2025, UHF (RAIN RFID) tag sales by value will be just 60% of HF tag sales (including NFC), due to the higher price point of HF tags used for security (such as payments, access, etc) against the cheaper, largely disposable UHF (RAIN) tags used for tagging items. However, the gap between the overall tag sales is shrinking due to increased activity in UHF market and decline of HF market.
Total RFID Market Size 2024-2031, Source: IDTechEx report “RFID 2026-2036: Forecasts, Players and Opportunities”
Geographic Growth Opportunities and Market Distribution
The distribution of passive RFID tag market value by end use across regions is explored in detail within RFID Forecasts, Players and Opportunities 2026 to 2036. This analysis by IDTechEx focuses on four key regions: the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa (MEA).
In 2025, the Americas and Asia-Pacific are the two largest markets for passive RFID tags, with the Americas accounting for 38 percent of global end use and Asia-Pacific close behind at 37 percent. The Americas holds a slight lead, driven by strong adoption of UHF RFID, which makes up over 60 percent of global UHF tag use. This is largely due to widespread deployments in retail, apparel, and logistics by companies such as Walmart and UPS. Asia-Pacific’s position is supported by historically high volumes of HF RFID used in contactless cards. However, the region saw a nearly 7 percent decline in HF tag use from 2024 to 2025 as the growing use of mobile wallets began to reduce card issuance.
Europe ranks third in the passive RFID market overall, accounting for 20% of global end use in 2025. The region’s market is primarily driven by UHF RFID, with Europe making up nearly 30% of global UHF end use. Growth is supported by large-scale deployments in sectors such as retail and apparel, as well as upcoming regulatory changes including the EU Digital Product Passport, which mandates item-level traceability for select product categories starting in 2026.
The Middle East and Africa region is the smallest and least penetrated market for passive RFID, accounting for four percent of global end use in 2025. The region’s largest RFID segment is HF, mainly driven by the digitalization of payment systems, a shift away from cash, and growing adoption of contactless cards.
More detailed insights into the regional breakdown and market trends can be found in the report “RFID 2026-2036: Forecasts, Players and Opportunities”.
Passive RFID Tag Market by Geography in 2025. Source: “RFID 2026-2036: Forecasts, Players and Opportunities” report.
In-depth market analysis
IDTechEx assesses the RFID industry in a variety of ways using new and unique information gathered globally by IDTechEx research analysts. Each market is thoroughly examined, with detailed historical data by application type provided from 2012 to 2024, followed by a prediction from 2026 and every year thereafter until 2031. IDTechEx also provides a long-term forecast for 2036. Key forecasts included in this report are: 10-year prediction of tag numbers, average sales price, and market value of Passive RFID, Battery-assisted Passive RFID, Active RFID, and RFID readers, Forecast for the Passive tag market size by end use geography.
Forecasts for passive RFID are given separately for each of the application areas listed below:
Passive RFID Market Forecast by Frequency and Application Segmentation. Source: “RFID 2026-2036: Forecasts, Players and Opportunities” report.
Additionally, the report provides units, average selling price and total value for RFID readers in the following categories:
Types of RFID Readers covered in the report. Source: “RFID 2026-2036: Forecasts, Players and Opportunities” report.
The research conducted by IDTechEx ultimately provides ten-year forecasts by application area including tags, readers, software and services for the following markets:
RFID Market by Application Types. Source: “RFID 2026-2036: Forecasts, Players and Opportunities” report.
Data is also provided for other sectors including trends by territory, value chain positioning, NFC, chip vs chipless and more. Cumulative sales of RFID are analyzed. Progress of key companies is provided in addition to a matrix of hundreds of suppliers. A price teardown is conducted for the two main types of passive RFID inlays – UHF and HF RFID.
Key questions answered in this report
IDTechEx evaluates the key data in this report to answer key questions such as:
For example, IDTechEx discovered that there are now emerging or established leaders in most places of the value chain across the various technologies after conducting comprehensive interviews with suppliers, but that only a few businesses had revenues of more than US$100 million. There are still numerous opportunities, which are evaluated in this report.
IDTechEx’s level of detailed analysis allows us to account for data throughout the value chain, for example, inlay sales lag the number of IC sales by several months which is considered in our forecasts.
Key market forecasts include:
1. Passive UHF tag numbers and market value segmented in the following sectors:
2. Passive HF tag numbers and market value segmented in the following sectors:
3. Passive LF tag numbers and market value segmented in the following sectors:
3. Passive RFID market value segmented in the following regions:
