NFC vs RFID: What's the Difference for Cards?

People ask for NFC cards and RFID cards as if they were two different products. They are not quite. NFC is one kind of RFID, so every NFC card is an RFID card, but not every RFID card is an NFC card. The difference that matters when you are buying cards is which frequency the card uses and what reads it. This post sorts that out in plain terms. For the full map of card technologies, including prox, iCLASS and magnetic stripe, see our guide to access credentials and encoding.

RFID is the family, NFC is one member

RFID stands for radio frequency identification. It covers any card, tag or sticker that a reader can identify by radio, without a swipe or a contact. The family is split by frequency, and cards on different frequencies cannot read each other's readers.

• Low frequency, 125 kHz. Classic proximity cards. Simple, cheap, read at a few inches, and still common on office doors. A phone cannot read them.
• High frequency, 13.56 MHz. Contactless smart cards, including MIFARE, DESFire, HID iCLASS and NFC tags. Read at a few centimeters.
• Ultra high frequency, around 900 MHz. Long-range tags read from several feet away, such as parking tags and inventory labels.

NFC, near field communication, is a standard that lives inside the high frequency band. It defines how a phone or reader talks to a tag at very close range. When people say NFC card, they usually mean a 13.56 MHz card that a phone can tap.

So what is the practical difference?

For a buyer, three things separate an NFC card from other RFID cards.

• Phones. NFC cards are built to be read by phones. A 125 kHz prox card is invisible to a phone, and some 13.56 MHz cards are only partly readable by phones.
• Range. NFC works at a few centimeters, on purpose. Long-range RFID works across a parking lane. If you need to read a card from a distance, NFC is the wrong tool.
• What it is for. NFC suits tap-to-share cards, membership and loyalty, event entry and hotel keys. Prox suits basic door access on older systems. Long-range RFID suits vehicles and inventory.

Which chip is in an NFC card

NFC cards carry different chips, and the chip decides what the card can do. The common ones are MIFARE Classic 1K, MIFARE Ultralight, the NTAG family and MIFARE DESFire. In short:

• MIFARE Classic 1K is the long-running workhorse for hotel locks, access and cashless systems.
• MIFARE Ultralight is a simple, low-cost chip for short-life cards such as event passes.
• NTAG213, 215 and 216 are the phone-friendly chips behind most tap-to-share cards.
• DESFire is the higher-security option for access control and transit.

Our NFC cards page covers each one, what we stock, and what we quote.

Is NFC more secure than RFID?

Security depends on the chip, not on the label. Both the weakest and the strongest cards in common use are RFID.

• 125 kHz prox sends a fixed number with no encryption. It is simple and reliable, and it is also the easiest card to copy, which is why many buildings are moving away from it.
• MIFARE Classic 1K has its own encryption, but its weaknesses have been public for years. It remains a sound choice for hotel keys, loyalty and cashless systems, where the stakes per card are low and the price matters. It is not the choice for high-security doors.
• DESFire, HID iCLASS SE and Seos use modern encryption and are what higher-security access programs choose.
• NTAG chips are built for sharing, not for security. Anyone with a phone can read a tap-to-share card, which is the point.

So the useful question is not NFC or RFID, but how much a copied card would cost you. A copied hotel key for one night is a small risk. A copied card for a server room is a large one.

Can one card do both?

Yes. Dual-technology cards carry two chips in one card, typically a 125 kHz prox chip alongside a 13.56 MHz chip. They are common in buildings changing from one system to another, where the same card has to open old prox doors and new smart card doors during the changeover.

A card can also carry a magnetic stripe and a barcode on top of its chip, so one card handles the door, the cafeteria swipe and the library scan. Each addition costs more, so add only what your systems actually read.

How to tell what you already have

If you have a card or key and need to know what it is, a phone settles most of it. Free NFC reader apps, including NXP's own TagInfo, identify a 13.56 MHz chip when you hold the card against the back of the phone.

• If the app names a chip, it is a high frequency card, and that name is what you order.
• If the app shows nothing, the card is probably 125 kHz prox, a long-range tag, or magnetic stripe only.
• Prox cards often carry a number printed on the card or the fob. That number, and the reader's make, is what matters for ordering prox. Our guide to prox cards explains it.

Which should you buy?

Start from whatever reads the card, not from the card itself.

• Your doors already use 125 kHz prox. Buy prox. An NFC card will not open them.
• Your locks or system read MIFARE. Buy the MIFARE chip they expect, which is usually Classic 1K for hotel locks.
• You want people to tap the card with a phone. Buy NTAG.
• You are choosing a new access system. That is a bigger decision about security, and the comparison in our post on prox versus smart cards is the place to start.

Whatever the chip, the card itself prints like any other PVC card in an ID card printer, and custom-printed runs start at 500 cards. If you are not sure what you need, tell us what reads the card and we will work it out from there.