If you’re looking to print your own cards inhouse for the first time, or you need to upgrade an existing ID card printer, the choice can be a little overwhelming.
We’ve selected some of our favourite ID card printers based on our own experience and the feedback we receive from customers. The lower the number of support tickets we receive for a particular printer, the higher up the list they go!
We’ve grouped our best ID card printers for 2024 by category to help guide your decision, but we encourage you to properly research each model, or talk to us to make sure it’s right for you.
Or take our Printer Finder Quiz – answer 4 short questions and we’ll give you recommendations.
- Best Cheap ID Card Printer – for Printing on a Budget
- Best ID Card Printer for Small Business
- Best Double-Sided ID Card Printer
- Best High Quality ID Card Printer
- Best for High Volume & Printing on Chip Cards
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Best Cheap ID Card Printer – for Printing on a Budget 💰
IDP Smart 21 • £499 +VAT
The IDP Smart 21 is currently the cheapest ID card printer we sell, and we can’t fault it as a budget, entry level model. If you’re printing less than 500 cards in a year, you’ll be hard pushed to find a plastic card printer that gives such good value for money.
It’s also one of the smallest on the market, around A4 size.
- Single sided print
- Hand fed (you’ll need to manually insert each card)
- USB connection
- Korean made
- 2-year warranty
This printer is best suited to users that print single cards, or small handfuls of cards at any one time. This is because it comes with hand feed functionality only. If you’re printing cards in any volume, manually inserting each card could soon become tiresome.
👍 Things we like: The price point.
👎 Not so much: The running costs. The ribbons are more expensive (per print) than other models, so if you’re printing cards in any sort of volume, the per-card-cost is higher.
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Pointman Nuvia N10 • £539 +VAT
For a smidge more than the IDP Smart 21, you can pick up the Pointman Nuvia N10.
This affordable ID card printer is built on a long-standing model which has been around for many years, so any operating issues were ironed out a long time ago. But what you’ll gain in reliability you’ll sacrifice in terms of newer features that are offered by more recent models.
That said, if you’re printing straight forward ID cards or plastic cards and don’t need your printer to do anything clever like print security features, this machine will do what you need it to.
- Ideal for printing around 500 cards per year
- Hand fed (you’ll need to manually insert each card)
- Small footprint
- Korean made
- Fast – prints 180-200 cards per hour
👍 Things we like: The running costs. You will spend less printing each individual card than with other budget models.
👎 Not so much: The hand feed card function.
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Best ID Card Printer for Small Business 💼
Zebra ZC100 • £659 +VAT • Replaces Zebra ZXP Series 1
The Zebra ZC100 is ideal for small businesses that print both volumes of cards and single cards. For example, if you update your staff ID cards every year, its card hopper can auto-feed in 100 cards at any one time. You can also use the manual feed part of the printer to print on the reverse of the card if you need to (simply re-insert the card to print on the reverse).
The model builds on Zebra’s hugely popular ZXP series and gives reliable, consistent performance.
If you need to print on different thicknesses of cards, the card feeder will instantly adjust to suit.
- Ideal for printing around 1000 cards per year
- 2 year warranty
- Manufactured in the USA
- LED Display
- Prints 150 full colour cards per hour
👍 Things we like: Its 100-card hopper that means you don’t need to hand-feed in cards. We also like the slim design, which makes it one of our best ID card printer for small business.
👎 Not so much: Comes with USB connection only, you’ll need to pay extra for Ethernet.
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Magicard 300 • £950 +VAT • Replaces Magicard Enduro
The Magicard 300 is one of our best-selling ID card printers under £1000 because of its capabilities, and because we rarely have customers reporting any issues with it.
It can easily handle up to 10,000 cards a year and will continue to print good quality cards time and time again, without any fuss. It’s pretty fast (capable of 160 colour cards per hour) and has a host of new features like digital shredding. You can also bolt-on additional functionality like encoding if you need to.
- Get the double-sided version for the same cost as single-sided
- Ethernet & USB connection
- Digital Shredding feature (meaning no data is held within the printer)
- Made in the UK
- 3-year warranty
👍 Things we like: Comes with Magicard’s HoloKote® functionality, which allows you to print a watermark over your cards for extra security. This alone puts it in the category of best ID card printer for small business.
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Best Double-Sided ID Card Printer 🔄
Magicard 300 • £950 +VAT • Replaces Magicard Enduro
The Magicard 300 is one of our best-selling ID card printers under £1000 because of its capabilities, and because we rarely have customers reporting any issues with it.
It can easily handle up to 10,000 cards a year and will continue to print good quality cards time and time again, without any fuss. It’s pretty fast (capable of 160 colour cards per hour) and has a host of new features like digital shredding.
You can also bolt-on additional functionality like encoding if you need to.
- Get the double-sided version for the same cost as single-sided
- Ethernet & USB connection
- Digital Shredding feature (meaning no data is held within the printer)
- Made in the UK
- 3-year warranty
👍 Things we like: Magicard’s HoloKote® functionality makes it a best double-sided ID card printer for us. This allows you to print a watermark over your cards for extra security.
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Matica MC110 • £799 +VAT
If every penny counts, the Matica MC110 double-sided printer is the cheapest dual sided ID Card printer we sell.
It can’t handle the same volumes as the Magicard 300, but if you’re printing less than 1,000 cards a year it will comfortably manage that.
The print engine is good, we get consistently high quality printed cards from the MC110.
- Prints up to 150 colour cards per hour
- Italian designed, but manufactured in the UK
- Encoding options available
- 2-year warranty
👍 Things we like: The running costs. You’ll spend less per-print on ribbons. Also the print quality.
👎 Not so much: If your card volumes grow outside of 1,000 a year, you’ll start to outgrow it.
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Best ID Card Printer for High Volume 📈
Evolis Primacy 2 • £1020 +VAT • Replaces Evolis Primacy
This extremely reliable ID card printer will happily print over 10,000 cards a year and has one of the fastest print speeds on the market.
The updated version of Evolis’ best-selling Primacy printer, the Primacy 2 comes with some added bells and whistles which makes it a clear favourite with people that work with these machines all day.
Its high-resolution printing mode produces a high-quality print finish and there are various levels of security features that you can choose to incorporate, from holograms to protective laminates. Its scalable, which means you can add on extra features as your needs change.
- Prints up to 280 high quality colour cards per hour
- Available as single or double sided
- Wi-Fi connectivity
- Digital Erasing
- Made in France
- 3-year warranty
👍 Things we like: The price point. You get a lot of bang for your buck with this one. You can also print paperboard cards through the Primacy 2 using Evolis’ own brand of paper cards.
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Best High Quality ID Card Printer 🌟
Magicard 600 • £1200 +VAT • Replaces Magicard Rio Pro 360
The Magicard 600 ID Card printer is a workhorse that will comfortably print over 10,000 cards a year. But what makes it stand out is the fact that it prints at 600 x 300 dpi resolution (most printers are 300 x 300 dpi).
This means you can expect vibrant, colour-rich cards with greater legibility.
It also comes with a customisable HoloKote® watermark feature for added security. This allows you to add your own watermark design during print as an anti-cloning feature.
- Get the double-sided version for the same cost as single-sided
- Wi-Fi connectivity
- Digital Shredding
- Made in the UK
- 3-year warranty
👍 Things we like: You can create 10 custom HoloKote® designs for your cards for greater security, ideal if you print cards for different parts of your business.
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Best for High Volume & Printing on Chip Cards 🔐
Evolis Agilia Retransfer Printer • From £2800 +VAT
As you’ll see by the price point, we’ve taken a considerable step up here in terms of printer quality and output.
The Evolis Agilia is the first retransfer printer we’ve brought into the mix, and it’s described by Evolis as ‘the game changer’.
What’s the difference between Direct-to-Card and Retransfer Printing?
Retransfer printers are commonly used by government and large organisations to produce highly secure cards that need to last – e.g. driving licences. They are also the gold standard for printing on technology or RFID cards as the method of printing doesn’t damage the chip within.
If quality and durability of the card are most important to you, it’s worth investing in a retransfer printer like the Agilia.
- High quality 600 dpi print resolution
- Over the edge printing
- Various security features as optional extras
- Made in France
- 3-year warranty
👍 Things we like: The over-the-edge print. This immediately elevates the print quality of your card.
👎 Not so much: The price point means it’s not always affordable, but you get what you pay for.
Still not sure which is the best ID Card Printer for you?
Give our friendly team a call or start a chat with us, we’ll be happy to guide you!
For further research, read Factors to Consider when buying an ID Printer.
