The Best Travel Power Banks

A power bank earns its place in your bag on the day everything goes wrong. The gate agent announces a three-hour delay, every outlet along the wall is taken, and your phone is at 11 percent. That's when capacity, output and the cable you did or didn't pack all matter at once. Most people carry more than a phone now, too — earbuds, a tablet, a work laptop. The right bank quietly covers all of it. The wrong one adds a pound to your bag and charges your laptop at a crawl.

No power bank does everything, and physics is the reason. Capacity means weight, so the bank that carries you through a week of travel is the one you'll feel in your backpack by the second terminal. Airline rules cap you at 100 watt-hours without approval, which puts a hard ceiling on capacity at roughly 25,000mAh. Wireless charging is convenient and wasteful, since a chunk of the energy leaves as heat. And every bank here refills more slowly than a wall outlet does. You're buying a compromise, so buy the one that matches your trips.

Start with what you actually plug in. If it's a phone and a set of earbuds, a small bank is plenty, and you'll thank yourself every time you lift your bag. If you work on a laptop between flights, you need real USB-C Power Delivery output rather than a trickle that barely holds the battery steady. We think that the Anker Laptop Power Bank is the best travel power bank for most people, and that the Baseus Blade is the one to buy if you want the same charging speed in something flat enough to slide into a laptop sleeve.

Buy one of these if you fly, commute or spend real hours away from an outlet, and if running out of phone battery would genuinely disrupt your day. If you carry a laptop, jump straight to the 100W picks and accept the weight; anything less turns into a slow drip that only delays the inevitable. If you only ever need a single emergency phone charge, a small magnetic pack is enough, and the large banks here will feel like punishment by the end of a walking day.

This guide covers portable chargers you can put in a bag and take through airport security. It doesn't cover wall chargers, solar panels sold on their own, car jump starters, or the wheeled power stations built for RVs and home backup — those solve a different problem and follow different rules. If your bank is more than a few years old, is puffy, or has no watt-hour rating printed on it, replace it rather than flying with it.

Airline legality: every bank we recommend for flying stays under the 100Wh carry-on ceiling, because that's the number that decides whether you keep it at security. Charging speed: we compared rated output and the charge-time figures on each spec sheet, and held laptop picks to 100W USB-C Power Delivery. Ports and cables: we gave credit for running several devices at once, for built-in cables, and for keeping a USB-A port around for older gear. Size and weight: listed weight and shape counted as a real cost, since the bank you leave in the hotel room charges nothing. Safety and support: we looked for UL or IEC certification, overcharge and overheat protection, and warranty terms, and we let owner reports of heat or early failure knock products down.

If you want a built-in cable in something lighter: The Anker Power Bank ($69.99) — This Anker splits 87W across three devices, with up to 65W going to a single one, and it's under a pound. Anker says the attached USB-C cable takes a MacBook Air to about half in 30 minutes, and the bank itself refills in roughly an hour and a half on a 65W charger — quick enough for a lunch break. The cable is rated past 10,000 bends, so it should outlast the trip you bought it for. What you give up is headroom: 65W holds an ultrabook steady and tops it up between meetings, but it won't refill a big laptop at full speed the way our top two picks will. It carries an 18-month warranty.

If you want two built-in cables and 100W: The Baseus 100W Power Bank 20000mAh ($49.99) — This Baseus puts two braided USB-C cables on the body and still hits 100W, which is a combination nothing else here matches. Baseus says a half-hour gets a MacBook Air to 50 percent, and the pack holds about four charges for a large phone. Pass-through charging means you can leave it plugged into the wall and let it feed your laptop at the same time, which is genuinely useful in a hotel room with one free outlet. The digital display shows an exact level. The trade-offs are the attached cables adding a little bulk, and no USB-A port at all — so older accessories need an adapter you'll have to remember.

If you want a wall outlet in your backpack: The Goal Zero Sherpa 100AC ($249.95) — The Sherpa 100AC has a real 100W AC inverter, so camera batteries, small chargers and other wall-plug gear work directly off it with no adapter shopping. Goal Zero rates it at 95Wh, which keeps it under the carry-on ceiling, and there's a 15W wireless pad on top plus an 8mm input that accepts a compatible solar panel for multi-day trips off the grid. The aluminum unibody is built for being thrown in a truck. But it weighs 2.1 pounds and it's the largest standard bank here, so city and business travelers are paying a real weight penalty for an outlet they'll rarely use. Goal Zero covers it with a two-year warranty.

These are the other banks our research turned up, not a census of the category. New models appear constantly, and a product landing here usually means it's aimed at a narrower buyer than our picks, not that it's bad.

The Mophie Powerstation Prime Wireless 5K Power Bank ($39.95) — The Mophie Powerstation Prime Wireless 5K is the most polished magnetic pack in this group, with a soft-touch body under half an inch thick and a hidden display that only lights up when you check it. Mophie rates the snap-on charging at up to 7.5W, though, which is half what the Qi2-certified Anker manages, and 5,000mAh works out to roughly one phone charge. That's a city-day pack, not a travel pack. Choose it if you want the nicest-feeling small charger to carry in a jacket pocket and you'll never be more than a day from an outlet. It comes with a 24-month warranty.

The UGREEN Nexode Power Bank 20000mAh 130W Portable ($59.99) — The UGREEN Nexode 20000mAh is the enthusiast's pick and came close to a spot above. It's rated at 130W total across three ports with up to 100W on the main one, it keeps a USB-A port for older cables, and its 72Wh capacity clears airline limits with room to spare. The TFT display is the best in this group — voltage, current, remaining time, all of it. But the column shape is awkward in a flat laptop bag, there's no built-in cable, and at just over a pound it's heavy for 20,000mAh. If you like knowing exactly what your gear is drawing, buy it anyway.

Power banks fly in your carry-on, never in a checked bag — that's a firm rule, not a suggestion. Anything under 100 watt-hours goes through without a conversation, and most 20,000mAh banks land around 72 to 74Wh. To check yours, divide the mAh by 1,000 and multiply by 3.7. Between 100 and 160Wh you need advance approval from the airline, and some carriers simply say no. If no watt-hour rating is printed on the case, expect an agent to take it. Beyond that, keep it out of a hot car, don't store it fully empty for months, and top it up a few times a year. If the case ever looks swollen, stop using it and recycle it properly.

For this guide:

• We read the manufacturer spec sheets for every bank here and compared rated output, capacity, watt-hours and stated charge times against each other.
• We cross-checked those claims against published reviews from established electronics outlets and against recurring themes in owner feedback, particularly complaints about heat, slow refills and cables that fail.
• We checked each product's stated capacity against current FAA carry-on limits before recommending it for air travel.
• We read owner reviews on every listing, weighted toward the critical ones, because that is where the recurring failures show up.
• We have a systematic way of automatically fetching the latest prices, so the numbers on this page stay current.
• This is a research-focused guide, so the team may not own every product listed — though we often do own the top winners, which gives us extra context for the recommendations.
• We don't accept free products, and the retailer commission never changes which product we recommend.