Where Your Card Is Legal: UK, Germany, France, and the Airplane
"It's a tool, not a weapon" is an argument that works in a conversation with friends and doesn't work in a conversation with a constable. Carry laws are written in the language of millimeters, mechanisms and reasons — and every country speaks its own dialect. We ship cards to 63 countries, so "can I take it to London?" lands in our inbox weekly.
This is a plain map for the four most common cases: the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the airplane. Structural spoiler: half of our catalog passes everywhere without a single question, and the other half lives by knife rules — and we'll say plainly which is which.
01Three rules that hold in every jurisdiction
In the UK, Germany and France, self-defence is explicitly excluded from lawful grounds for carrying. Saying it at a stop doesn't soften the situation — it qualifies it.
"I'm an electrician" works on the way to a job with tools in the bag — and doesn't work on Saturday night in a club with the same card in a pocket. The law looks at context: place, time, circumstances.
The airport screener and the street officer both have discretion. The most legal object in the world can be lost at a checkpoint if the officer decides otherwise — and a checkpoint is the worst possible place to argue.
02 · UKUnited Kingdom: three inches, and nothing fixed
The UK is the strictest jurisdiction on this map, and it runs on the formula of Section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988: without a specific reason, the only thing you may carry in a public place is a folding pocketknife with no blade lock and a cutting edge of up to 3 inches (7.62 cm). Both conditions at once: a locking blade (any lock) is legally treated as fixed — even if it's two centimeters long.
Now the part that matters for card owners: a cutting edge milled into a card is a fixed blade. It doesn't fold, so the "folding pocketknife" exemption simply doesn't exist for it, at any length. A card with a sharpened edge in the UK is a "bladed article" that requires good reason: work, craft, fishing with the matching context. In a backpack on the way to the workshop — yes. In a pocket on Piccadilly on a Friday night — no.
And the reverse: cards with no cutting edges — rulers, gauges, wrenches, drivers — don't fall under Section 139 at all. That's not a gray zone; it's simply not the subject of the law.
Since 2024–2025 Britain has additionally banned several classes of large blades, and penalties for carrying keep tightening — the trend is unambiguously toward stricter, not softer. Planning the UK? Take the bladeless row and never think about it again.
03 · DEGermany: twelve centimeters and the zones
Germany's §42a WaffG bans carrying (führen) two categories in public: fixed knives with blades over 12 cm and "one-hand knives" — those that both open one-handed AND lock. A lawful interest (berechtigtes Interesse) lifts the ban: work, sport, a generally recognized purpose.
For cards the arithmetic is friendly: a card's cutting edge physically cannot exceed the 86 mm envelope — leaving at least 34 mm of headroom to the German limit. Under the base rule of §42a, a card with an edge is legal to carry in Germany. But since 31 October 2024 the law has been tightened where it touches everyone: weapons-ban zones (Waffenverbotszonen — stations, designated districts), public events, and long-distance public transport. Inside those perimeters the restrictions are stricter than §42a and hit any blade. Transport in a locked container (not at hand) remains the legal way to move anything — and "locked" is the operative word: a zipped jacket pocket is still carrying, a latched case at the bottom of a bag is transport. The test officials apply is reach: if you can produce the edge in a few seconds, you are carrying it.
Practically: Germany is friendly to a card with an edge on the route "home — workshop — woods," and unfriendly to the same card at Oktoberfest.
04 · FRFrance: Category D and the question "why"
France doesn't measure centimeters — it asks "why." Any knife (fixed, or folding with a lock) is a Category D weapon: free to buy and keep at home from 18, but carrying or transporting it without a legitimate reason is an offence: up to €15,000 and a year of imprisonment, doubled in a group. The reason is judged case by case: a chef with knives in a roll — yes; the same knife in a pocket at night — no. Since 2024, major cities have been piloting an on-the-spot fixed fine (AFD) — the procedure got faster, which means checks and fines got more frequent, not less.
Cars have their own rule: Category D travels in a locked compartment inaccessible from the cabin — the glovebox doesn't count.
Cards without edges sit outside Category D: a ruler isn't a weapon under even the harshest reading. A card with an edge is legally a knife, with everything the paragraph above implies.
05The airplane: one rule for all cabins
TSA states it cleanly: a multi-tool with a blade of any length — checked baggage only. There is no size exception: a two-centimeter edge removes an object from the cabin exactly as a machete does. A multi-tool without a blade — pliers, drivers, wrenches, openers — is allowed in carry-on, with the eternal caveat that the final decision rests with the officer. UK and European airports run on kindred logic (a 6 cm edge limit for hand luggage exists on paper, but screeners judge multi-tools harder than the formula). The full rule, and what it does and does not say, is in TSA Rules for Multitools.
Hence two routes for our cards: bladeless ones ride in the wallet through any checkpoint (which is exactly why the Universal 4.0 was designed without blades); edged ones go in the suitcase, wrapped so that the baggage inspector doesn't meet the edge blind.
A scanner tip that saves five minutes: bladeless cards are full of honest 90° corners — scrapers, pry tips, hex cutouts — and under X-ray a dense steel rectangle buried in a stuffed wallet reads as "stop the belt." Put the card flat in the tray next to your phone and keys. The operator sees a ruler, not a shadow, and nobody unpacks your bag.
06The train exception: Eurostar screens like an airport
London–Paris by rail feels like street territory — it isn't. St Pancras and Gare du Nord run X-ray screening under the carrier's own rules, which are stricter than either country's street law: locking and fixed blades are banned from Eurostar regardless of length. The only knife exception the carrier lists is a small non-locking folder — and a milled edge in a steel plate is a fixed blade, so no edged card qualifies. Bladeless rows pass the same scanner without a question. Same logic, different building: the station borrowed the airport's rulebook, not the street's.
07The catalog map: two rows
Row 1 — "carries everywhere": no exposed cutting edge.
Universal 4.0 · Designer · OfficeWorker · Professional · Bit Store Card · Lumberjack · Extreme. London, Berlin, Paris, the airplane, the stadium, the school — these are measuring and driving tools that are not the subject of any law described above. The Extreme sits in this row and not the next one: what it carries is a recessed cord cutter, the same class as the OfficeWorker’s thread slot and the Professional’s box opener — no exposed edge, nothing to sharpen, nothing an officer can measure. Why forty functions with no edge at all is a harder drawing than sixty with one is its own article.
Row 2 — "knife rules": there is a sharpened edge.
Universal 3.0 · Universal 5.0 · Adventur · Bushcrafter · Card Knife · Art Knife · MRF Fold · Survival Wallet Kit. Legally these are fixed blades: in the UK — good reason, always; in Germany — free outside zones and events; in France — good reason, always; on a plane — checked bag. At home, in the workshop, at a campsite with a tent — unrestricted in all three countries.
Three of those need a line of their own. The Bushcrafter is here because its hatchet-saw edge is the same serrated section that strikes the ferro rod — a bladed article on the street and checked baggage in the air, and what a survival card can and cannot actually do is its own article. The MRF Fold is the one folder on the list, so “fixed” is the wrong word for it — it lands here for the plain reason that it has a real blade — although its Rotate Lock has no release lever and closes under deliberate pressure, which in the UK and German taxonomies reads as a high-retention slip joint rather than a locking folder: the friendlier side of that particular line, and still a knife that needs a reason and a suitcase. The Survival Wallet Kit has no cutting edge at all, but eight fish hooks, five arrowheads and a spearhead are points — its own spec plate says checked luggage, and that is the right reading of every rule on this page.
The rest of the shelf follows the same test rather than a new one. The Pocket Tool and the S Keychain are bladeless hardware and read as Row 1. A Modular Tool KIT takes the row of whatever is in the slot: a Blade KIT turns a Row 1 card into a Row 2 one for exactly as long as it is clicked in, which is the whole argument for twisting it out before you pack. If the format itself is new to you, the plain version — what the cutouts do and which card carries what — is in How to Use a Credit Card Multitool.
These aren't "good" and "bad" cards — they're tools for different environments. A hatchet has no business getting into a club; a ruler has no business splitting kindling.
The card's edge is shorter than 3 inches — so the UK is fine? +
No. The three-inch exemption applies only to folding, non-locking blades. An edge in a plate doesn't fold — it's fixed by definition, and fixed blades need a reason at any length. Yes, a ruler with a 5 cm edge is legally stricter than a folding knife with a 7 cm blade. We didn't write this law.
What counts as a "good reason" in practice? +
The chain "object — activity — moment." Driving to a fishing trip with your gear — the edge is justified. The same card in a pocket at a concert — it isn't. If you have to invent the reason, you don't have one.
I've been stopped. What do I say? +
The truth, briefly. What it is, where you're going, why. Don't litigate statutory interpretation on the curb — other venues exist for that, and, if needed, lawyers.
Can I really take a bladeless card through airport security? +
By the rules — yes. Blade-free cards clear checkpoints constantly, and that is a pattern, not a promise — the final call belongs to the officer. If a screener on a bad day decides otherwise, the cheapest exit is checking it or mailing it to yourself, not winning the argument and missing the flight.
Why are you publishing where your own product is restricted? +
Because a customer who learns about Section 139 from a constable rather than from us is the worst possible scenario for all three parties. We sell tools to adults, and we believe adults deserve the full picture.
SOURCES: UK CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 1988 S.139 (LEGISLATION.GOV.UK) AND 2024–2025 STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS · GERMANY §42A WAFFG (GESETZE-IM-INTERNET.DE), AMENDMENTS OF 31.10.2024 · FRANCE CODE DE LA SÉCURITÉ INTÉRIEURE R315-1, SERVICE-PUBLIC.GOUV.FR · TSA: TSA.GOV, "MULTI-TOOLS." VERIFIED AUGUST 2026. THIS ARTICLE IS GENERAL INFORMATION, NOT LEGAL ADVICE.
Andrii Gurskyi, founder & engineer, MRF.Tools
In 2015 he went looking for a real tool for his own wallet, found only stamped junk or overpriced steel — and started machining his own. Ten funded Kickstarter campaigns, 4,000+ backers, every reward shipped — several of them through a war. Designed and developed in Ukraine. About MRF →