Apple made a bunch of grandiose claims about the battery upgrades in the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, but stopped short of revealing how large the new batteries actually are. That's pretty typical for Apple, though new European Union (EU) regulations may have just helped reveal the answer.
All phones that go on sale with the EU need to have publicly accessible Energy Labels. These labels list key details about the phone including IP ratings, drop test performance, repairability, energy performance and battery specs. That information also includes battery capacity.
According to the listings iPhone 18 Pro will have a 4,056 mAh battery, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max will offer 5,391 mAh capacity in the EU and other related regions. These devices likely all come with physical SIM card slots, since European iPhone owners aren't yet forced to use eSIMs the way they are in places like the U.S.
This is important because it means the North American models may actually offer slightly larger batteries. That trend started with the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, and considering the design hasn't changed that much, we're expecting it to happen again this year. But for now, let's examine the changes in battery size as if everyone is getting the same thing — SIM slot or not.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Capacity (mAh) |
Difference (%) |
iPhone 18 Pro (nano SIM) |
4,056 |
N/A |
iPhone 18 Pro Max (nano SIM) |
5,391 |
N/A |
iPhone 17 Pro (eSIM) |
4,252 |
-4.71% |
iPhone 17 Pro Max (eSIM) |
5,088 |
5.78% |
iPhone 17 Pro (nano SIM) |
3,998 |
1.44% |
iPhone 17 Pro Max (nano SIM) |
4,823 |
11.12% |
The EU iPhone 18 Pro actually has a smaller battery than the eSIM-only iPhone 17 Pro, with a difference of almost 5%. However it is slightly higher than the nano-SIM 17 Pro variant, with 1.44% more battery capacity. If we extrapolate that change, we estimate that the eSIM-only 18 Pro could have roughly 4,313 mAh of capacity.
The nano SIM iPhone 18 Pro Max's battery is 5.78% larger than that of the eSIM iPhone 17 Pro Max, and a whopping 11.12% larger than the battery on the nano SIM iPhone 17 Pro Max. Again if there's a similar size difference between the two eSIM variants, the iPhone 18 Pro Max could have as much as 5,653 mAh of battery capacity — which is absurd when you consider Apple typically offers much smaller batteries than its rivals.
Of course we don't know for sure whether the new batteries will be that size, on account of the U.S. not having the same regulatory requirements as the EU. So unless Apple makes the uncharacteristic decision to reveal all the nitty-gritty specs of the new iPhones, we're going to have to wait for teardowns following the September 18 release date.
As for the iPhone Duo, we're just going to have to wait a little longer. Since it won't be released until October 23, we're going to have to wait a few months before these sort of regulatory filings are made available to the public.
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