My iPhone does not read tags automatically

It depends on the model

Background reading, where the phone notices a tag without any application being opened, is available from the iPhone XS and XR onwards.

On earlier supported models an application has to be launched manually before a tag can be read at all. A phone in that group produces nothing when a tag is presented, which is expected behaviour rather than a fault.

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.

So the first question is which model you are holding, because it determines which behaviour is correct.

The result is a notification

Where background reading does work, a tag produces a notification rather than opening something directly.

If the notification is not tapped, nothing further happens. The experience is a tag that was noticed and did nothing, which reads as a failure.

It also means the phone must be awake enough to present a notification. A tag read attempt on a phone that is not in a state to show one produces no visible result.

This is a deliberate difference from Android 16 and earlier, where a tag can trigger an action more directly, and it catches out anyone comparing the two. From Android 17, the Android NFC basics guide says a tag holding a web link shows an open link notification on Android too.

Reading from inside an app

Opening an application and starting a read is the reliable path on every supported model.

It is also the only path on models before background reading, and it works regardless of what the phone was doing beforehand.

If a tag reads inside an application and does nothing from the lock screen, both behaviours are normal and nothing needs fixing.

For diagnosis this is useful: an application read that succeeds proves the tag, the distance and the hardware are all fine.

Designing for this

Assume a deliberate tap on an awake phone. Public deployments work best when the person intends to tap something rather than discovering a tag passively.

Write a web address, which is the content type handled most predictably across both platforms.

Print a short instruction. Someone whose phone is asleep, or whose model needs an application, needs to know that before they conclude the tag is broken.

And test on an older iPhone specifically, since it is the device most likely to produce this symptom and the least likely to belong to whoever tested the deployment.