This is a question I saw on another blog…

“I’ve seen a lot of people talk about the range of passive and active RFID tags. But what is the range for these two kinds of tags? Anybody know how far it truly can go?”

Basically passive RFID tags have a very small range because they have no internal power supply. The variance between passive RFID tags varies greatly and can be as little as a few mm to about 18 feet.

This makes them a great choice for tagging merchandise in a store—allowing a retail outlet to track their merch all the way to the parking lot.

Active RFID tags are bigger, more expensive, and have a much bigger range. They generally use high frequencies to be read at a range up to 300 feet. Whether RFID tags will get much farther depends on the technological advances that come down the line. Right now high frequency and microwave frequencies travel the longest—but will it be long before satellite technology allows you to track things globally. Who knows?

Check out active tags for more info on RFID tag ranges.