Materials · PVC
The workhorse of the front desk
Roughly nine in ten hotel key cards worldwide are PVC — and ours starts as the same card-grade film and sheet stock used for bank cards: white, clear and seven through-pigmented colours, superb to print on.
PVC laminates into a rigid, wipeable card that survives months of pockets, magnets-adjacent wallets and front-desk re-encoding. It takes offset printing and finishes better than any other card material, at the lowest standard cost per piece.
Why PVC endures
Lowest cost at volume
The most economical durable card format — ideal for high-turnover properties.
Best-in-class printability
Offset CMYK, PMS spot colors, foils and laminates all behave predictably on PVC.
Proven durability
Standard 0.76 mm construction rated for years of circulation.
PVC card stock — technical data
- Card body
- Rigid card-grade PVC, white core with no optical brighteners; clear and 7+ pigmented core colours (red, yellow, orange, blue, green, purple, black) for colour-through VIP cards
- Coated colour stock
- Coloured cores with a white-coated print face (white layer Rz 2.0–8.0 μm) — colour-edge cards with clean full-colour graphics on top
- Finished thickness
- 760 μm / 30 mil (ISO/IEC 7810 CR80 — bank-card format); 500 μm economy body available for short-stay programs
- Layer build
- Printed core sheets (white cores run 80–820 μm) plus clear overlay film (50–100 μm per side), collated and hot-press laminated
- Surface
- Double-sided matte, Rz 4–10 μm — the tooth that offset, silk-screen and thermal-retransfer inks need
- Ink adhesion
- Corona-treated faces, wetting tension ≥ 38 dyn/cm for reliable ink and foil anchorage
- Heat stability
- Vicat softening point 80–86 °C (A120) — safe in mailboxes, glove boxes and front-desk printers
- Mechanical strength
- Tensile strength ≥ 40 MPa (MD) — resists snapping in wallets and back pockets
- Chip compatibility
- Every 125 kHz and 13.56 MHz chip we stock, plus magstripe and hybrid builds
- Typical service life
- 2–5 years of daily guest reuse before print wear retires the card
Inside a PVC key card
A hotel key card is not a single sheet — it is a laminated sandwich. Five layers are collated, then fused in a hot press so the finished body reads as one solid 760 μm card. The RFID antenna is an etched aluminium or wound copper coil bonded with adhesive film rated ≥ 7 N/cm peel strength, so the electronics can never delaminate in a guest’s pocket.
≈ 760 μm finished — identical hand-feel to a bank card
- Clear overlay · 40–100 μm Protects print from key-ring scratches; carries hot-stamp foil and spot UV
- Printed core sheet · 100–400 μm Offset or silk-screen brand graphics, front face
- RFID inlay Etched antenna + chip, bonded with card-grade adhesive film
- Printed core sheet · 100–400 μm Back-face graphics, instructions, magstripe panel
- Clear overlay · 40–100 μm Seals the back face; signature or write-on panels optional
When PVC is the right call
- You are buying for a fleet: PVC is the lowest cost per door of any card material, which matters at 10,000+ cards a year.
- Print quality is the priority: the whitest base sheet and tightest colour control of any substrate we run.
- You want zero compatibility questions: every lock brand, encoder and printer on the market was designed around PVC first.
PVC key card questions
How thick is a standard hotel PVC key card?
The standard is 760 μm (30 mil) — the same ISO/IEC 7810 CR80 format as a bank card, which is why key cards feel familiar in the hand and run through any encoder. We also produce a 500 μm economy body for short-stay and event programs where cards are handed out once.
Will heat warp PVC cards in mailing or in a hot car?
Card-grade PVC keeps its shape up to a Vicat softening point of 80–86 °C. Mailboxes and glove boxes rarely exceed 70 °C, so warping is uncommon in practice. For desert resorts or unattended outdoor kiosks we recommend high-heat PETG, which stays stable to 100 °C.
What print and finish options does PVC support?
The matte Rz 4–10 μm surface with corona treatment (wetting tension ≥ 38 dyn/cm) anchors offset litho, silk-screen and thermal-retransfer print, plus hot-stamp metallic foil, spot UV and embossing under the overlay. If a finish exists on a bank card, we can put it on a PVC key card.
Are PVC key cards recyclable?
PVC is technically recyclable but rarely accepted in municipal streams, and most retired key cards end up in landfill where standard PVC persists. If disposal footprint matters to your brand, specify degradable PVC (identical in use), wooden or paper cards instead.
Start your order
Need key cards that just work at check-in?
Send your lock brand and quantity — you will get a factory-direct quote and a free sample pack to test in your own locks before you commit.