Do NFC business cards work on every phone?
No, and the honest answer serves you better than the confident one. Most phones read them. Some need an application opened first. Some have no NFC at all. A card with a printed fallback covers every case and costs nothing.
Three groups of phone
Reads without anything opened. Android devices with NFC enabled, and iPhones from the XS and XR onwards. This is most of the phones you will meet.
Reads only through an application. Earlier supported iPhones, where an application has to be launched manually before a tag can be read at all.
Does not read tags. Phones without NFC hardware, which still exist particularly in budget ranges and in some regional variants.
Take NFC Tools. On iOS it requires an iPhone 7 or later running iOS 15.6 or later, and the app must be launched manually. Background reading is available from the iPhone XS and XR onwards.
What proportion that is
It depends entirely on who you meet, which is why a single figure would be misleading and would date.
A room of technology buyers and a room of retail customers are different populations. So is one country against another.
What is stable is the shape: a large majority in the first group, a small minority in the second, and a small but real minority in the third.
Design for the shape rather than for a number, which means assuming the first group is served automatically and the other two need a fallback.
What to say when asked
Say most phones, not all, and say it before they ask. Overclaiming is what turns a small failure into a credibility problem.
Say that there is a printed address on the card for anyone whose phone does not cooperate. That reframes the exception as something you planned for.
Avoid explaining the platform differences in the moment. It is interesting to you and it is not the conversation you came to have.
And if their phone fails, move on immediately rather than troubleshooting. Nothing about a business meeting improves while you diagnose someone's phone.
Covering all three
Print the address on the card. It costs nothing, it serves everyone in the second and third groups, and it survives a flat battery.
Add a printed code as well if the design allows it, since a camera works on phones that have no NFC at all.
Keep the address short and readable, because someone may type it. A long path with parameters is not a fallback.
And test the card yourself on an older iPhone before ordering a run, since that is the group most likely to surprise you and the least likely to be in your pocket.
Frequently asked questions
Do all iPhones read NFC business cards?
Not without qualification. Background reading is available from the iPhone XS and XR onwards, and earlier supported models need an application launched manually.
What proportion of people can use one?
It depends on who you meet, so any single figure would mislead. Assume a large majority, and plan for the minority who cannot.
Should I mention the limitation?
Yes, briefly, before it comes up. Saying most phones and pointing at the printed address is better than being contradicted.
Is a printed address enough of a fallback?
It covers everyone whose tap fails, and it has to be short enough to type. A printed code alongside serves people with no NFC at all.