travel car seat for baby

• Car Seats /

Best Car Seats for Travel

Our favorite travel-friendly infant, convertible & booster seats for the baby days through the big-kid years., by jen labracio, cpst.

Ever try to lug a 20-pound car seat through an airport while thinking to yourself, “There has to be a better way?”

Traveling with babies and young children can be a great adventure, but it can also be a bit of a logistical nightmare. Should you use your car seat on the plane ? (Yes.) Where will they sleep? (A travel crib or a travel bed usually do the trick.) Can you fly with breastmilk ? (Yes.) How do you keep a toddler entertained on a long flight? (Thoughts and prayers.)

Car seats can be especially confusing when you’re away from home. Most present a bit of a conundrum: you want your to keep your little one safe and secure, but you don’t want to throw out your back lugging a big, bulky car seat around with you wherever you go. The good news is there are plenty of travel-friendly car seat options on the market—you just need to know what features to look for.

Babylist’s Top Picks for the Best Travel Car Seats

Best infant car seats.

• Lightest Infant Car Seat: UPPAbaby Aria Car Seat
• Best Affordable Infant Car Seat: Evenflo Litemax 35 Infant Car Seat
• Best Luxury Infant Car Seat: Nuna Pipa Rx Infant Car Seat with Relx Base
• Best Infant Car Seat + Stroller: Doona Infant Car Seat & Stroller

Best convertible car seats

• Best Convertible: Cosco Scenera NEXT Convertible Car Seat
• Longer Lasting Convertible: Evenflo Sonus 65 Convertible Car Seat
• Most Compact Convertible: WAYB Pico Travel Car Seat

Best booster seats

• Best High-back: Graco TurboBooster 2.0 Highback Booster Car Seat
• Best Backless: Cosco Rise Backless Booster Car Seat

In This Article

• How We Chose the Best Travel Car Seats
• Our Top Picks

What Is a Travel Car Seat?

Do you need a travel car seat, features to look for in a travel car seat, babylist’s picks for the best car seats for travel, infant car seats, lightest infant car seat for travel.

UPPAbaby Aria Infant Car Seat - Jake

The UPPAbaby Aria, one of our top car seats for infants , hit the market in early 2024 and we couldn’t be more excited about it. The brand’s OG car seat, the Mesa , is a popular choice for expecting parents but is a few pounds heavier than many comparable seats. The Aria comes in much lighter, weighing just under six pounds without the canopy and inserts, making it the lightest infant seat currently on the market. This is great if you’re using the seat daily, but even better if you’re using it for travel.

The Aria is GREENGUARD Gold Certified and can be installed with or without its base, another travel plus. (It features something called a European belt path , a routing system that makes installing the seat without its base safer and more secure.) A no-rethread harness makes fit adjustments easy and there’s a load leg and an anti-rebound bar for safety and stability. We also love the XL canopy for shade and darkness and that you won’t need adapters if you’re connecting the seat directly to a Vista or Cruz stroller.

Additional Specs

Best affordable infant car seat for travel.

Evenflo Litemax 35 Infant Car Seat - Knowville Gray

You don’t have to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a travel-friendly infant car seat. Evenflo’s LiteMax (another of our top baby car seats ) costs a bit over $100 and weighs only eight pounds, making it affordable and travel-ready. You can install it without its base—it even has a European belt path. There’s a full-coverage canopy and an ergonomically designed handle for easier carrying.

If you don’t mind spending a bit more and are looking for some extra safety features, check out the LiteMax DLX , which features a load leg. (Just remember that the load led extends from the base, so if you’re using just the seat you won’t have that benefit.) And for another affordable infant car seat for travel, check out Graco’s SnugRide 35 Lite LX Infant Car Seat . It weighs just over seven pounds and can be installed without the base when you don’t feel like bringing it along.

Best Luxury Infant Car Seat for Travel

Nuna Pipa Rx Infant Car Seat with Relx Base - Granite

The Pipa Rx is a stellar combination of safety + convenience and works just as well as an everyday car seat as it does for travel. It’s pricey, but it’s also a sleek, modern seat with two key features that make it ideal for travel: weight and ease of installation. The Pipa weighs just over seven pounds, making it one of the lightest infant car seats on the market—a huge plus when you’re carrying it through the airport or taking it in and out of your car. And like other seats on our list, you can install it without the base using your vehicle’s seat belt and the European belt path.

It’s also packed with high-end features that you’d expect in a higher-priced seat. It’s GREENGUARD Gold Certified and doesn’t contain any added fire-retardant chemicals, and there’s an oversized canopy for shade. Safety-wise, it excels, featuring both a load leg and an anti-rebound panel (both extra safety features that help absorb impact and rebound in the event of a crash).

For another high-end, travel-friendly seat, check out the Clek Liingo . It’s a bit heavier, but it features LATCH anchors built right into the car seat itself, meaning you can skip the base and the seat belt and install it securely in seconds.

Best Infant Car Seat Stroller Hybrid for Travel

Doona Infant Car Seat & Stroller - Nitro Black

There’s nothing quite like the Doona. This one-of-a-kind hybrid stroller + car seat is a favorite of on-the-go parents and is a great item of baby gear to own if you’ll be traveling frequently with your little one during their first year or so.

The Doona transforms from an infant car seat into a stroller with the click of a button. When it’s time to get in the car, the stroller legs and wheels pull up and fold under the car seat. It’s a dream if you’re looking to cut down on the amount of gear you’re lugging around when you’re away from home and if you’re looking for a seat that’s easy to get in and out of ride shares or rental cars. (It’s a great seat for city dwellers too.)

Convertible Car Seats

Best convertible car seat for travel.

Cosco Scenera NEXT Convertible Car Seat

Most convertible seats aren’t designed for travel. Weighing in at an average of about 20 pounds, convertibles don’t snap into strollers and are heavy, bulky and meant to be installed in your car and stay there. For parents who travel frequently or don’t own a car, getting around with a convertible seat poses quite the challenge.

The Next, which is ranked as one of our best convertible car seats , solves for this dilemma. It weighs about 10 pounds—light for any car seat but especially so for a convertible. It’s easy to sling over your shoulder while you’re walking through the airport or install in an airplane seat or a ride share. (It’s FAA-approved for plane travel.) It’s totally no-frills and can be a bit tricky to get a secure install, but it’s slim, safe and affordable and can be used both rear- and forward-facing.

A Longer Lasting Travel-Friendly Convertible Pick

Evenflo Sonus 65 Convertible Car Seat - Rocco Red

The Sonus 65 is a travel-friendly convertible car seat and a good choice if you’re looking for a seat with a higher height and weight maximum than the Cosco Scenera Next. It weighs a bit more, but only by about a pound, and you’ll be able to use it until your little one reaches 65 pounds or 50 inches as opposed to the Next which maxes out at 40 pounds and 43 inches.

In addition to its extended use capabilities, the Sonos is an affordable seat with a few noteworthy features. It’s a fairly narrow seat, so it won’t take up much room across your back seat and can be used three across. There’s also a built-in ventilation system, a reinforced frame, five shoulder strap positions and two integrated cup holders for drinks and snacks.

Most Compact Convertible Car Seat for Travel

WAYB Pico Travel Car Seat

The WAYB Pico is like no other convertible car seat on the market. Designed specifically for families who travel or are frequently on the go, it’s one of the pricer options on our list but is a worthwhile investment if you’re looking for an innovative, safe and incredibly compact convertible car seat option.

The creators of the Pico were inspired to create a completely unique convertible-style seat after watching parents struggle trying to lug car seats through airports and in and out of taxis and ride shares. There’s no feature here that hasn’t been completely (and ingeniously) thought through. The Pico’s frame is made from lightweight, aerospace-grade aluminum; there’s a five-point harness and seat fabric made from a cool, breathable mesh; and the seat installs either via a seat belt or LATCH system. The Pico weighs just eight pounds and folds up for easy transport either by hand or in the brand’s carry bag .

One thing to keep in mind: the seat is forward-facing only, so if you’re looking for a rear-facing convertible for travel, this isn’t a good fit for you.

Booster Seats

Best booster seat for travel.

Graco TurboBooster 2.0 Highback Booster Car Seat

Booster seats use a vehicle’s seat belt as a restraint and were developed to help elevate children in a car’s seat, making adult seat belts fit better on smaller bodies. You’ll have to wait quite a while until you transition your little one from a convertible car seat into a booster; most experts recommend waiting to make the leap until your child maxes out their forward-facing car seat, meets the height and weight requirements of the booster and is mature enough to sit properly upright (no leaning, twisting, moving around etc.).

There are two types of boosters: high-back and backless. Graco’s TurboBooster falls into the first category, with a high back and a seat belt guide to thread your vehicle’s shoulder belt for a proper fit. Due to their height, no high-backs are particularly great for travel, but this one is one of the best you’ll find in terms of price (affordable) and weight (just over eight pounds). It’s also easy to install and fits a wide variety of children well, and transitions to a backless booster for years of use.

Best Backless Booster Seat for Travel

Cosco Rise Backless Booster Car Seat

Most experts recommend using a high-back booster for as long as possible , but once you’re ready to make the switch to a backless model, your life is going to get a whole lot easier (and a lot lighter!). Cosco’s Rise is a no-frills seat that’s affordable, lightweight and compact, making it ideal to toss into a bag or even a tote for travel. The wide base and high armrests make it easy for your child to buckle in themselves and there’s a shoulder belt positioning clip to ensure you’ll get the proper fit.

How We Chose Our Best Car Seats for Travel

• We analyzed results from Babylist’s Best Baby Products survey , which polled 6,000 Babylist users and asked them to share the baby products they love the most and why.
• We utilized insight from the Babylist editorial team, including Gear Editor Jen LaBracio, an expert in the baby space for over six years and a mom of two who has written hundreds of baby gear guides and personally researched and tested hundreds of baby products, including many travel car seats.
• We reviewed customer reviews from hundreds of real Babylist parents.

There’s no specific category or true definition for a “travel” car seat; instead, what defines a travel-friendly car seat is more about its features. Things like a light weight, compact design and ease of portability are all factors to consider when you’re shopping for this type of seat.

Determining if it’s worthwhile to invest in a car seat just for travel depends on your family’s lifestyle. If you’re a family who tends to stay close to home or use your own car when you’re traveling, you can likely skip a travel-friendly seat. But if you’re planning on hitting the road (or the skies) frequently with your little one in tow, then purchasing a car seat specifically for travel can make your life on the go a whole lot easier.

Also keep in mind that you don’t have to use a travel-friendly car seat just for travel. A compact, lightweight car seat is a great choice if you’re an urban family that doesn’t own a car, for example, if you need a seat for a grandparent or other caregiver or if plan to switch your seat frequently between cars.

There are some specific features to keep in mind when you’re shopping for a car seat that’s well-suited for travel.

• Weight. This is a biggie. Lugging around a heavy car seat isn’t a fun way to spend any part of your vacation. Choose the lightest seat you can within your budget—your lower back can thank us later.
• Design. A slim, compact seat is easier to transport than a big, bulky one. Keep this in mind when choosing what type of seat you’ll purchase for traveling.
• Ease of installation. Does spending 40 minutes trying to install a car seat in your rental car sound like fun? Make sure the car seat you choose for travel can be installed quickly and easily in the widest range of car makes and models.
• FAA-approved. This one’s important if you plan on doing a lot of travel via plane. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids ride in child safety seats on airplanes —but you’ll need to make sure your seat is approved for airplane use . Look for a label on the seat that reads “certified for use in motor vehicles and aircraft” to be sure. This includes infant seats, convertibles, forward-facing seats and some harnessed boosters.

Jen LaBracio,

Senior gear editor, cpst.

Jen LaBracio is Babylist’s Senior Gear Editor and a Child Passenger Safety Technician (CPST). When she’s not geeking out over car seats, testing out a new high chair or pushing the latest stroller model around her neighborhood, she likes to run, do all things Peloton, listen to podcasts, read and spend time at the beach. In her past life, she worked for over a decade in children’s publishing. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and their two boys, Will and Ben.

The 10 Best Travel Car Seats In 2024 (For Airplanes & Transfers)

THIS POST MAY CONTAIN COMPENSATED LINKS. FIND MORE INFO IN MY DISCLAIMER.

Our process involves independent research, testing (by using it whilst we travel), reviewing, and recommending the best products. Click here  to learn more.

It can be so tricky to find car seats for airplanes.  

Deciding which car seat is in actual fact the  best travel car seat  can be even more challenging.

Did you know that you can only use a portable car seat for travel on an airplane if it is has been FAA certified?

Now take into consideration that we need to find the best lightweight car seat for travel so we can easily port it around and lastly that we also need to find a car seat that is slim enough to fit on the narrow airplane seats.

It is no easy feat to find to find the best car seat for flying, and that fits all of those criteria!

Don’t have time to go through the entire list?

THE BEST CONVERTIBLE LIGHT CAR SEAT FOR TRAVEL

Our pick: Safety First Jive 2-in-1 Convertible Car Seat  

• It is lightweight
• Slim design for airplane seats
• Suitable for weights from 5 - 65 lbs

See the Safety First Jive 2-in-1 Convertible Car Seat for travel reviews

Below you will find a list of best airplane car seats for 2024.

We also share some food for thought about whether you actually need a car seat as well as ideas on how to make it easier to actually travel with the car seat.  

PS.   Here is our guide to the best baby travel gear and the best travel gear for toddlers .  

Best Car Seat for Travel Guide & Top 10 Compact Travel Car Seat Reviews

In this airplane car seat buying guide, we suggest you check out our comparison chart of the best car seat for air travel and then read our portable baby car seat reviews of the seats that best suit your requirements.  

The below reviews are of the best convertible travel car seats, so if you are shopping for either:

• the best travel car seat for 1 year old, 
• best travel car seat for 2 year old,
• best travel car seat for 3 year old or
• the best travel car seat for 4 year old, 

we got you covered!

Click Here to See Our Pick for the B est Convertible Car Seat for Travel

FAA Approved Car Seats Comparison Chart

Below is a helpful airline approved car seat list of all the top rated car seats for travel, which are mentioned in this article.

You can then read my reviews below featuring the best car seat for airplane travel that 2024 has to offer.

Best Travel Car Seats Sorted by Age

We also thought it might be helpful to have a FAA child seat chart that is sorted by age.

Let's take a look at some options of the best travel infant car seat for babies from birth to 1 year of age  and travel toddler car seats options that are perfect for little ones from 1 - 4 years of age.

Also, let us show you our recommendation for a car seat for travel on airplane for 3 - 4+ year old.

Before you choose which is the best car seat for plane use, we do recommend that you read through all of the reviews to get a clearer picture.

Top 10 Best Travel Car Seat Reviews

Below you will find the list of the best FAA approved car seats and best FAA approved convertible car seats. We will have a close look at the top air travel car seats.  

I will outline the features, the pros and cons of each in detailed travel car seat reviews, which should help you choose the best travel car seat 2024 has on offer for you. 

1. Safety 1st Jive 2-in-1 Convertible Car Seat Review

What We Love About It: It is only 18" in width - so it fits nicely on plane seats. The arm rests are low so we could use the plane tray table for eating.

Important to Note: For a car seat to be light, it has to compromise on comfort and quality, so we only keep this seat for travel purposes but have a better seat for when we are home.

This is one of the best selling travel baby car seat because you can use it straight from birth all way through to 65 lb.

It is cheap enough to take on a trip without worrying if it got dirty or banged up a bit. 

It is lightweight (14 lb) and slim (18"), but still offers some cushioning for little babies.

Tip: There are also 2 removable cup holders on each side, which will save more space and make it more compact. 

This safe travel car seat is certified for aircraft use in both the rear- and forward-facing positions

Lightweight

The Safety 1st car seat might not be the lightest car seat on our list (the WAYB Pico Travel Car Seat is), but it is still light enough at 14 lbs to carry with ease and offers more cushioning in comparison to the NEXT car seat.

It is important that your little one is comfortable which is why we prefer this car seat.

Convertible Car Seat

The seat is convertible and has a weight range of 5lb to 40lb when using rear-facing and a weight limit of 22lb to 65lb for forward-facing position.

Some Negatives

Whilst you can use this seat from 5 lb, we prefer the Graco SnugRide SnugLock 35 LX for infants. The straps are a bit hard to adjust and the padding slips around a bit.

Keep in mind this is a basic car seat (which is great as you won't mind if it gets knocked about on a trip), but a newborn baby, I prefer to spend more and get more protection for their necks.

Overall Opinion

The Safety 1st Jive 2-in-1 Car Seat is one of the best cheap baby car seats for travel.  It is lightweight and slim enough to fit on airplane seats.

It has a wide weight limit so that you can use the seat for many years.

The seat is definitely one of the best car seat for traveling on an airplane and, in our opinion it is one of the best car seat for airplane 2024 options.

This is our pick for the best cheap car seat for travel and/or the best convertible car seat for air travel.

2.   Cosco MightyFit 65 DX Convertible Car Seat Review

What We Love About It: It’s light weight and you can use it in a plane rear facing and front facing. 

Important to Note: It could have more padding where the airplane buckle goes.

This travel-friendly car seat is a lightweight car seat for travel that is also a FAA certified car seat. 

It has high safety ratings and it a bit taller in comparison to other cheap car seats, which means that the seat will last that bit longer before your little one hits the height limit.

It is FAA-Approved and can be used only on forward-facing positions on the plane.

The car seat is lovely and light at 12.76 lbs, which is the ideal weight for a car seat for aircraft use.

The seat is convertible and has a weight range of 5lb to 40lb when using rear-facing and a weight limit of 22lb to 65lb for the forward-facing position.

Whilst you can use this seat from 5 lb, we prefer the Graco SnugRide SnugLock 35 LX for babies and infants as it offers more support and protection for their necks.

The Cosco MightFit DX 65 Car Seat is a brilliant buy for older kids. The seat is cheap as chips and lightweight.

It is a great option as a portable car seat for 3 and 4 year old's, as the seat is nice and roomy.

It is also a fabulous car seat for home-use. You can fit 3 of these car seats in most cars, which is brilliant!

We love this car seat and I'm sure you will love it too.

3. WAYB Pico Travel Car Seat Review

What We Love About It: It folds! This is the narrowest and lightest car seat on our list.

Important to Note: This seat is so innovative, but it comes at a premium price.

Looking for a travel car seat for 2 years and up to 4 year old kids? This is a fabulous seat with extra room for growing kids. 

The WAYB Pico travel car seat is super lightweight (8 lb) and lovely and slim (14.5"). It is such a great car seat that I would even recommend it for the car at home as well. 

The car seat is lovely and light at 8 lbs, which is the ideal weight for a car seat for aircraft use.

Slim Design

The baby travel car seat is lovely and slim and at 14.5" it should fit comfortably on most airplane seats.

When folded the Pico car seat can fit into overhead bins and is easily carried while walking through the airport or to-and-from the car! 

Forward-Facing ONLY

Because this seat is designed for older kids, you can only use it in the forward-facing position and it doesn't recline.

It is suitable for toddlers and kids older than 2 with a weight range of 22 - 50 lbs. It is roomy and lovely and tall for kids with height up to 45".

The WAYB Pico Travel Car Seat is a brilliant buy for older kids.

The seat is our most expensive travel car seat however if you are looking for a super lightweight and lovely slim travel car seat this is a great option for 2 - 4 year old's.

It is also a fabulous car seat for home-use and due to it's lightweight you can easily move it from car to car and it will fit in most cars, which is brilliant!

Tip:  Check out our blog post on best portable car seat for 2 year old here.

4. Evenflo Sonus 65 Convertible Car Seat Review

The Evenflo Sonus 65 is ideal for use as a travel seat on the airplane. It is a FAA approved child restraint seat, it is lightweight (only 11.5 lbs.), and has a perfect width of around 19".

The Sonus is a lovely light 11 lbs. It is the second lightest car seat on our list and is the perfect seat to cart through an airport, you might even get away with carrying it if you have to.

The width of the car seat is 19", which means that the seat should fit comfortably on all plane seats, although you might have to lift the arm rests on the very narrow 16.5" seats.

Convertible

The seat can be used in rear-facing position from 5 – 40 lbs. and in the forward-facing position from 22 – 65 lbs.

You can find out how to install this seat in rear- and forward-facing positions on the plane in the manual here . 

The Sonus 65 is a great convertible lightweight travel car seat.

It is suitable for babies and toddlers from 5 to 65 lbs. and offers 6 harness positions for a better fit. The seat is lightweight and slim.

We also love that the seat features a revolutionary air flow ventilation system that provides a temperature-regulated, which means that your little one will be comfortable no matter what the season or temperature is of your destination.

5. Graco Contender Slim Convertible Travel Car Seat Review

What We Love About It: It is light and compact. It is also a bit more comfy in comparison to the seats listed above.

Important to Note: If you need to use the seat in rear-facing, it will mostly likely be a very snug fit (and it might not even fit). It is better in forward-facing.

This Graco travel car seat is a great portable car seat that is FAA approved with a good safety ranking.  

Despite it having a fixed base it is still lightweight (16 lbs.).  

It is slightly more expensive than many of the other car seats on our list, but it is more cushioned and comfy.

The Graco Contender Slim Convertible car seat is a lovely lightweight car seat despite the fixed base, weighing in at only 16 lbs.  

It is slightly heavier than other car seats so we do recommend you invest in a car seat carrier.  

The Graco car seat is compatible with the Baby Trend Snap N Go car seat carrier.

It is a convertible car seat which means that you can use it in rear-facing to forward-facing positions.

It has a rear-facing weight limit of 40 lbs. and a forward-facing weight limit of 65 lbs.  

The car seat is a bit more pricey in comparison to the cheap infant car seats such as Cosco, Evenflo and Safety 1st.

It also has a lower height (24.75") in comparison to Safety 1st (29.75"), which means that your little one might grow out of it before they hit the weight requirements.  

As with many other car seats on the list, it can be tricky to install on planes.

The Graco Contender Slim is a great seller due to being able to use it from infants up to toddlers. 

If you don't mind the slightly higher price tag, then this might be, in our opinion, the best travel convertible car seat for you.

It ranks high on our list as one of the best travel convertible car seat 2024 options, after all.

6.   Graco SlimFit 3-in-1 Car Seat Review

The Graco SlimFit 3-in-1 is a great portable car seat FAA approved and with a good safety ranking.  

It is slightly more expensive than many of the other car seats on our list, but it offers better comfort from the cushion and padding.

The Graco SlimFit slim design makes the seat 10% slimmer despite the dual integrated cup holders.

It is a convertible car seat which means that you can use it in rear-facing to forward-facing positions. It is also used as a high-back booster seat.

It has a rear-facing weight limit of 40 lbs, and a forward-facing weight limit of 65 lbs. When used as a booster seat it has a weight limit of 100 lbs. 

The Graco SlimFit 3-in-1 is a great car seat for air travel.  

Although it is more expensive than the other car seats we have recommended, this car seat will provide value for money as you can use it from infants right up to the booster seat stage for your child. 

It is also a great car seat to use in your car at home.

7. Graco TriRide 3-in-1 Car Seat Review

The Graco TriRide 3-in-1 car seat is not the best lightweight car seat for travel. It is a bit on the thicker and heavier side, but it is still an FAA certified car seat. 

This car seat weighs just over 17 lbs (it is not the lightest car seat on our list!) which means that you should consider using the following to carry it with you through the airport.

We still do recommend that you put it in a  car seat backpack  or a car seat roller like the  Baby Trend Snap N Go to make life easier.

Thicker Design

The Graco TriRide is not the slimmest with a width of 19" compared to other car seats we have recommended.  

It will still fit through the security scanners and it should still fit on most airplane seats with the armrest up. 

Please do check with the airlines to make sure that the size of this seat is allowed before you go.

Rear-Facing

The Graco TriRide car seat is a travel convertible car seat, which means that you can use this car seat in the rear-facing position for babies up to 40 lbs. and forward facing for little ones up to 65lbs. 

When using the booster seat option, the seat can take a wight limit of up to 100lbs.

It is important to note that this seat can only be installed on the plane in the forward-facing position.

The Graco TriRide 3-in-1 is a very popular travel car seat because it offers value for money through the various weights and stages so can be used for a long time, but it also has high safety ratings.

The car seat is convertible and will last your bubs up until 100 lbs.  

8.   Evenflo Tribute LX Convertible Travel Car Seat Review

The Evenflo Tribute LX is a favorite because it is such an incredibly lightweight infant car seat.

The Evenflo Tribute LX is the one of the lightest car seats on our list. It is compact and weighs only 12 lbs. which is pretty incredible!

The seat has been designed to fit on plane seats. It measures 22" so you might have to have the arm rest up on smaller seat planes.  

I would also suggest you check the width of the bulkhead seats as they tend to be slightly more narrow than normal seats.

This car seat is convertible which means that it is suitable for newborns up to a weight of 30 lb when used in the rear facing position.

It has a weight limit of up to 40 lbs for forward facing.

The Evenflo Car Seat is a great car seat for travel. It is compact and lightweight and at a width of 22" it will fit on most seats with the arms rests down.  

The seat will fit through the baggage security scanners. A great car seat with high safety ratings! 

Find information on how to install this seat in rear- and forward-facing positions on the aircaft in the manual here.

9. Graco SnugRide SnugLock 35 LX Review

If you have a little baby, the best way to travel is with a capsule. Little babies sleep a lot and the last thing we want to do is to disturb their sleep by having to wake them up when we need to transport the seat.

Capsules are fabulous because you can leave your baby sleeping and simply grab the handle to carry baby through the airport.

Another fabulous things about this specific capsule is that it has the silent shade canopy which will help to block off the harsh plane lighting.

The capsule is suitable for infants from 4 - 35 lbs.

We also highly recommend that you can get the stroller frame that accompanies this capsule.

This travel system is ultra-lightweight at 16 lbs and is the perfect travel accessory for the capsule.

It also folds up great which is fabulous as it won't take up loads of room in your boot when you have to fit other luggage as well.

Grab the Graco SnugRider 3 Elite Car Seat Carrier here.

The capsule is lovely and lightweight at 10 lb. Important to note that you cannot use the base of the capsule on the plane (this is across the board with all capsules, not just this brand).

So best to pop the base in the overhead locker.

This capsule measures at 15.5 inches in width, which means that it definitely fit on all airplane seats.

Infant Travel Car Capsule

The Graco SnugRide is great for newborns babies up until 35 lbs.

It is a capsule style infant travel car seat which means that you can easily cary it around with the adjustable carry handle.

We absolutely love this baby capsule with the combination of the Graco stroller frame.

Both pieces are affordable, lightweight and small in size, which makes it perfect for vacations with your baby.

10. Graco Size4Me 65 Convertible Car Seat Review

The Graco Size4Me is a great and lovely cushioned seat for travel. T

he Graco car seat is FAA approved and whilst many people assume you can't travel with it due to its widest width being 22", you can actually still fit it on most plane seats with the arm rests down due to the narrow base and the way it is shaped.

The car seat is heavier than many other car seats on our list.  

It weighs 19 lbs. so do ensure you have a car seat trolley or car seat backpack to port it around the airport.

Whilst the seat measures at 22" at the widest point, it does have a narrow base.

Which means that the seat should fit beautifully (with the arm rests down) on the larger plane seats, but you will most likely have to fly with the arm rest up on the slimmer seats.

This car seat is great for 4-40 lbs babies in rear-facing position and 20-65 lbs. in forward-facing position. Which makes it a great travel toddler car seat.

Be aware that it is on the heavier side, so don't try to carry it around the airport.  

Due the width, you might also have to lift it up over the seats when you walk down the aisle in the plane (although friends have reported that it does fit down the aisle of some planes).

The Graco Size4Me 65 is a great portable toddler car seat to take along on trips. It fits beautifully on seats due to its narrow base and shape.

It is also really easy to install and adjust.

Important to note that it is slightly on the heavier side, but if you prefer a seat that is cushioned and super cozy for your baby, then we do recommend the Graco Car Seat.

Best Car Seat Travel Cart and Transporters for Airports

No matter how light the car seat is, I still suggest that you invest in either a car seat travel stroller or a backpack car seat bag to get around the airport.

Even with a trolley it might be slightly challenging to get your baby, luggage and car seat to the plane. Here are some great car seat cart options:

1. Britax Car Seat Travel Cart

The Britax Travel Cart is, in our opinion, one of the most popular travel carts for Britax car seat owners.  

It is a great car seat roller cart that allows seats to attach effortlessly using the car seat latch connectors.

The one-hand telescoping handle is great as it adjusts to fit any height. It will fold down compact enough to fit into most airplane overhead compartments.

The Britax car seat travel cart will work with all Britax convertibles and harnessed booster seats, as well as with most other brands.

The cart is a lot heavier (20.8 pounds) in comparison to the Go-Go Babyz cart (5 pounds) down below.

>>> Check pricing of this cart here .  

2. Go-Go Babyz Kidz Travelmate

The Go-Go Babyz Car Seat Luggage Cart is a great cart for USA car seats.

It works with both infant travel car seats as well as toddler convertible car seats. It has an additional fold down plate that you can use for larger car seats.

You can adjust the handle, which is great as you can make it shorter when stored and lengthen it out to make it easier to push (it has 4 positions).

It has wide-set 3" roller blade wheels which makes it easy to push along in the airport.

The Travelmate can be checked with your baggage, rolled to gate and checked, or rolled all the way on the plane to be used in flight or stored in the overhead compartment.

Folds to 28 x 17 x 5 inches. Weighs 5 lbs.

3. BRICA Roll ‘n Go Car Seat Transporter

The Brica Sar Seat Roller Cart is great as it fits most major brands of convertible and forward-facing car seats.

The best travel carseat stroller must have a lightweight design.  

It has fold flat wheels as well as an adjustable telescopic handle which allows the cart to fold up in order to fit in an overhead locked on the plane.

Weighing just 5 pounds, this transporter folds flat (2-1/2 inches thick) for easy storage.

4. Car Seat Travel Accessory

For a small alternative, you can consider this car seat travel strap. Simply connect your car seat to your rolling carry-on suitcase and off you go.

Easy, although I would probably suggest you only use this option for the lightweight car seats.

Best Car Seat Travel Bag, Carts, Transporters and Protective Covers for Travel

I hope you managed to find a car seat for your next trip from our FAA approved car seats list, the next step is trying to figure out how to transport the car seat around the airport.

If you wish to check in your car seat, we highly recommend you purchase one of these top car seat bags for air travel.  

Some airlines might give you a thin plastic car seat cover for travel, but they offer no protective.  

The first time we traveled with our car seat, it got damaged so we never go without a protective car seat cover for travel now.

Here are some of the best infant car seat travel bags that we can recommend:

1. JL Childress Padded Car Seat Travel Bag

The JL car seat travel bag is a great option. It is durable and comes with a lifetime warranty.  It is adjustable, has padded backpack straps and a lifting handle.

The interior of the travel car seat bag is padded.  It has dual and lockable zipper openings and an ID card pocket to pop all your details.

>>> Check pricing of this bag here .  

2. Flightjoy Travel bag  

The Flightjoy Car Seat Bag for Travel is another great option.  It has adjustable straps. The material is heavy duty, durable and will last.  It is compatible with most baby car seats.

These infant car seat travel bags are also airline approved so you can carry it through the airport terminal gates when you want to use the seat on the airplane itself.

3. Britax Car Seat Travel Bag

The Britax Car Seat Airplane Bag is great for Britax car seats. The brilliant thing about this bag is that it has built-in wheels.

The car travel bag is light and has several straps to make it easy to carry. It is waterproof and comes at a pretty affordable price tag.

4. Jeep Car Seat Travel Bag

The Jeep Airplane Car Seat Bag is a great universal car seat travel bag.  It is nice and large in size to fit even the bulkiest of seats.  

It has shoulder straps and made from quality durable fabric.  it is also waterproof and lightweight.

You can also choose to invest in the Jeep car seat travel bag with wheels if you prefer.

5. JL Gate Check Car Seat Bag

After a simple, no-frills car seat gate check bag that will get the job done?  Then the JL Childress Car Seat Check Bag is for you.

It’s lightweight and easy to carry. It is large enough to fit most car seats.  Simple, but effective and affordable.

Does My Child Need a Car Seat on an Airplane?

Ultimately the answer to this question comes down to safety and how important your baby or toddler's safety is to you.

The American FAA does strongly recommended that you use an approved child restraint device when travelling with infants less than 2-years old.

Ultimately car seats are the safest and most comfortable way for infants to travel on a plane.

Plus a toddler travel car seat for airplane use really comes in handy as your child know that they are expected to stay put in the seat.

But, in saying all of that, you are not legally required to use a car seat on the plane, so it does come down to your own decision.

Of course, you would also need to purchase an additional seat in order to use the car seat on as well, so keep that in mind.

A convertible car seat on airplane can be an easy option, allowing for use both rear and forward facing. We prefer a convertible travel car seat over an infant travel car seat. 

You will also need to ensure that the car seat has FAA approval.  Not every car seat can be used on the plane!

More information and the best infant car seat for travel below.

FAA Baby and Toddler Car Seat Regulations for Airplanes

In order to be allowed to use your car seat on the plane, it must be FAA approved. How do you find out if your car seat is FAA approved?  

Have a look at the sticker on the side of the seat and see if it says “This restraint is certified for use in motor vehicles and aircraf t .”

If you are located in Australia , the car seat must be approved to Australian Standards AS/NZS 1754. So make sure your seat has an AS/NZS 1754 approved safety label.

FAA Requirements

For a child less than 40 lbs. : Secure your child in an FAA approved car seat for the duration of the flight.  Follow the manufacturer’s instructions. This would typically be in the rear-facing position.

For a child 22lbs – 44 lbs. : For babies and toddler at this age, you could either use an approved car seat or you could choose to secure them in the airplane seat in an  Airplane Child Safety Harness .

The harness restraint is the only FAA approved child airplane harness system that is allowed to be used during takeoff, landing as well as in flight. 

More about this device below.

More than 40 pounds: Kids can use an airplane seat belt, however many parents typically keep their child in a car seat till around 4 years.

FAA-Approved Child Harness Device

The Airplane Harness Child Safety Device is the only FAA approved harness restraint for children weighing between 22 and 44 lbs (kids 1-year and older).

The benefits of a this harness is of course that it is small and portable enough to carry in your carry-on bags.  

The negatives are that your child will be required to sit up pretty straight on the airplane seats and the harness is really uncomfortable to sleep in.

So we do still prefer a toddler portable travel car seat as they are more comfy for kids.

>>>Learn more about this FAA approved child restraint or check out the airplane harness here .

You can find a list of 7 other great car seat alternatives for travel here.

Travel Car Seat Buyers Guide

Things that you should look out for when purchasing a car seat for travel use.

1. Weight of Seat

Ultimately the best car seats for travel should be lightweight, compact and portable. The weight of the seat is important for your own sanity.

We prefer a car seat that is around 10 lbs. (Slightly over is still okay).  

You will be required to lift the car seat in and out of the car, on to trolleys, port it around the airport as well as potentially have to lift it over peoples heads on the plane to carry it down the aisle. Stick to a lightweight car seat. Trust me!

2. Width of Seat

The width of the seat is another important consideration.  Just because the seat has FAA approval does not mean that it will fit on the plane seat.  

Plane seats can be anywhere from around 16" to 22". Most are around the 17 or 18" mark.  

You can check to see if your plane is list on the SeatGuru seat chart table to see what size your seat will be ahead of time.  

We find that child care seats around 18" or under fit on all airplane seats. Although you might have to lift the armrest on the 16" seat planes.

Another important consideration with slim designs is so that the seat will fit through the security scanner.

If the seat won't fit, the will need to hand inspect the seat and it would slow down the whole checking in process.

3. FAA Approval

As mentioned above, you will need to ensure that you purchase a FAA approved infant car seats or FAA approved toddler car seats.  

You can do this by checking the sticker on the side for this saying: “This restraint is certified for use in motor vehicles and aircraf t .”

3.  Convertibility

When you are shopping for the best car seat for international travel, make sure to get the best convertible car seat for travel option there is.

Buying a convertible car seat means that you will save money in the long run.

Convertible travel car seats can accommodate your child from infant to toddler with ease, from approximately 5 lbs. to 65 lbs. comfortably. 

Most of our seats on our list are convertible airline approved car seats.

With that in mind, please make sure to check out the convertibility features carefully and choose the travel car seat that suits you best.

Tips for using a Car Seat on an Airplane

Here is a list of some tips to make life easier when it comes to using your car seat on an airplane.

1.  Booking Seats

Important to note that you will need to use the car seat in a seat that won't block anyone's exit, so for example a window seat.

You will only get away with using your car seat in the bulkhead seats if your car seat is really narrow. Bulkhead seats have fixed armrests, thus reducing the amount of width available for a car seat.  

You won't be allowed to use the seat in exit rows or where it could block anyone's exit path.

2. Rear-Facing Car Seats

Another consideration is that if you use a rear-facing seat, the person in front of the seat might not be able to recline at all. So consider booking one parent to the right of your baby and one in front. 

3.  Notify the Airline of your Intent to use a Car Seat

Do take the time to make a call to the airline in advance to notify them that you intend to travel with car seat.

As extra precaution we also recommend that you request to have this noted to your booking and also ask for written confirmation of approval that you can bring out and take with you on the plane.

4.  Infant Capsule Seats with a Base

Another tip that might be useful is that the base of the capsule style infant travel car seats are NOT FAA approved and you would need to check-in your base or pop it in the overhead compartment (if it fits). You can only use the seat part on the plane itself.

5. Booster Seats and Plane Travel

According to regulations, booster seats are not permitted on-board.

Some airlines might let you use the booster seat for flying, but it will need to be stored for take-off and landing, but realistically speaking they can tell you that you are not allowed to use it at all as there are NO FAA approved booster seats. Sorry!

If you use a combination car seat/booster car seat, you can use the car seat with the internal harness, but the booster seat is not acceptable because there is no shoulder belt to use with the seat.

Tip: Here are the top 10 best travel booster seats .

6. Getting Around the Airport with your Seat

Making your way through the airport with a child, luggage, and a car seat can be a challenge.

Fortunately there are ways to make your life easier and easier means better! Last thing you want on the airport is an added struggle.

You could choose to invest in either a car seat trolley or choose to carry it around on your back with a car seat backpack.

You will find different recommended products for both of these options at the bottom of the guide.

>>> Click here for more helpful information on using a car seat for plane travel .

Answers to FAQ

1. should i bring a car seat on the plane.

Flying with a car seat is your safest option when flying with a baby or toddler. This is because the seatbelts on airplanes are not designed for their little bodies.

The general recommendation is for children under 40lbs to fly in an FAA-approved restraint which can either be one of the car seats for planes or an airplane harness. 

The great thing about taking your car seat with you is that when you reach your destination you have a car seat to use when traveling either in the taxi or in your rental car.

Most airlines will allow you to check a car seat into the hold for free in addition to your baggage allowance.

This applies to toddler car seats and booster seats as well as baby car seats.

So yes, you should purchase one of the best car seats for airplanes so that you can keep your child safe.

2. Can you rent a car seat from an airline?

No you cannot rent a car seat from an airline. Most airlines will allow you to check a car seat into the hold for free in addition to your baggage allowance.

3. Are all car seats airline approved?

The short answer is no, not all car seats are airline approved. We always recommend that you check if your airline does allow car seats and if it does, it must normally be an FAA or TÜV-approved seat. 

This means it is approved for use in an aircraft. To find out if you have an airline-approved car seat, check to see if it is marked "For Use In Aircraft".

Most car seats will have a sticker near the base of the car seat and it should have in red letters that it is approved for airplane or aircraft use.

4. What car seats can be used on planes?

Nearly every car seat in the US is approved for aircraft use - but not all are. But it is important to purchase car seats approved for air travel, so make sure it says it is FAA approved to avoid any issues with the flight attendants.

The only car seat that you cannot use is a booster seat as you require a seat belt that goes over the shoulder and lap when securing. 

We suggest using a high-backed booster seat as they are allowed on planes if they have a 5-point harness. 

5. What is FAA approved?

FAA approval means that the car seat has passed a standard airworthiness test and therefore allows you to travel with the car seat on a plane.

6. How do you pack a car seat on an airplane?

If you are checking in your car seat when flying we would recommend that you pack the car seat in a car seat travel bag. This will help prevent your travel car seat from being spoiled or damaged.

If your airport does offer baggage wrapping service we would also recommend this as it will add an extra layer of protection to the car seat.

7. Is it better to gate check a car seat?

Gate checking your car seat might not be as convenient as checking your car seat with your baggage when you check in, however the advantage to checking your car seat reduces the time and handling of your car seat by someone else.

This means less opportunity for your car seat being lost or damaged!

8. How do I check my car seat at the airport?

When you check in you can check your car seat at the same time if you wish it to go into the hold with the usual luggage.

First you will need to get it checked and tagged at the counter where you get your tickets and then you will most likely have to drop it off to the oversized luggage counter.

When checking in your car seat to the hold this is not counted as a part of your baggage allowance and most airlines will allow you to check a car seat into the hold for free.

This applies to toddler car seats and booster seats as well as baby car seats. 

We always recommend checking with your airline first to be sure of the rules and what they will and won't allow.

9. Do airplanes damage car seats?

Unfortunately, any item that is checked into the hold is at risk of being damaged or even lost.

We would recommend that if you do plan to check in a car seat, purchase a cheap FAA approved car seat for the flight.

This way if it is lost or damaged, it is not your expensive car seat that you use in the car at home.

10. Can I take my baby in a taxi without a car seat?

A child can only travel in a taxi or private hire vehicle without a child car seat if he or she sits in the back.

However, even though this is allowed we would always recommend that a car seat is used when traveling in a vehicle as this is the safest option. 

Children older than three years old must use the car's adult seat belt and it is advised that children under three should not use a seat belt.

11. Do airports provide car seat bags?

No, airports do not provide car seat bags as each car seat is different in size and there is not one size fits all car seat bags available. 

We have at times grabbed a normal thin plastic bag from the counter to use, however it didn't add any protection for the seat so is not recommended.

Verdict on Our Pick of the Best Travel Car Seat

Your baby's safety will of course top priority when it comes to choosing a car seat for travel. You may also take into account the style as well as your preference, needs, and budget.

If you want a travel car seat that will work for both travel and home use then our top pick would be the Safety 1st Jive 2-in-1 Convertible Car Seat . It is also great value for money as you can use it from birth up to 65 lbs which means you will get a good few years of use.

Although the Safety 1St Jive 2-in-1 can be used from 5 lbs, we do prefer the Graco SnugRide SnugLock 35 LX for babies and infants as it offers more support and protection for their necks.

If you prefer to travel light and with minimal fuss then the WAYB Pico Travel Car Seat is perfect. It folds up small and compact and does not take up much space when not in use or you have to transport it when not using. It is perfect for ages 2-4 years old.

If you want to travel super light and not have to worry about a car seat for when you arrive at your destination, a great option for children  aged two years or older who have their own seat and do not need much support is the Newroutes Airplane Safety Harness .

If you opt for the Safety 1st Jive 2-in-1 car seat we suggest investing in the Britax Car Seat Travel Cart as it will make transporting the seat around the airport so much easier.

We also recommend the Britax Car Seat Travel Cart for the WAYB Pico Travel Car Seat. Although this travel cart is made by Britax it works with most other brands of car seats as well. If you want to check this travel seat in then we recommend the smallest of all check-in bags, the JL Gate Check Car Seat Bag .

To give your Cosco Might Fix 65 DX travel car seat the best protection when you check it in when not using it on the plane, be sure to get the JL Premium Backpack travel bag . 

We hope this article has helped you decide on the best travel car seat for flying. Have a safe and comfortable trip.

Why Trust Wanderlust Storytellers

Jolene Ejmont is an author with almost a decade of experience in researching and writing about travel and lifestyle products. 

Additionally, she is a mother to 3 kids. She has experience traveling with a baby, toddler, preschooler, tween and teenager.

In the process of creating this list, Jolene delved into the research of numerous products, scrutinizing crucial specifications such as dimensions, weight rating, and reviews, both positive and negative.

2024 - Wanderlust Storytellers. All Rights Reserved.

About Us  |  Contact Us  | Work with Us  |  Privacy Policy  |  Disclaimer

* Disclaimer: Wanderluststorytellers.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com and other Amazon sites.

• Getting Your Car Ready
• Preparing for the Weather
• 8 Helpful Apps for a Road Trip
• Common Mistakes to Avoid
• Taking a Road Trip With Kids
• Planning a Solo Road Trip
• How to Plan a Camping Road Trip
• Planning a Stargazing Road Trip
• 10 Helpful Budget Tips
• Calculating the Cost of Gas
• Budget for a 3-Day Road Trip
• Best Road Trip Route By Interest
• Mississippi River Road Trip
• Atlantic Coast Road Trip
• Southern US Road Trip
• Northern US Road Trip
• Pacific Coast Road Trip
• US Route 12
• Northeastern US Routes
• Rocky Mountain Destinations
• Warm-Weather Road Trip
• The Longest Highway in the US
• Car Rental Companies
• Best Audio Books
• Must-Have Emergency Supplies
• Family Road Trip Toys and Games
• Car Bike Racks
• Search Please fill out this field.
• Newsletters

We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation.

• Trip Planning

The 7 Best Travel Car Seats of 2024

These top picks combine convenience and peace of mind

Jordi is a freelance contributor to TripSavvy. Her personal passions gravitate toward wellness and adventure, leading her to frequently plan trips that blend zen relaxation with urban and rugged exploration.

In This Article

• Our Top Picks

Final Verdict

• What to Look For

Frequently Asked Questions

Why trust tripsavvy.

Getty Images

Traveling with small children is a great way to make memories. You expose little ones to new experiences and see the world through their eyes. But there are still everyday tasks to worry about on the road, from meal times to naps. Safety is the top priority, of course, and this means ensuring your kids have a good car seat.

If you're flying with small children or frequently switching cars, the thought of lugging around the car seat you have perfectly installed in your vehicle can seem daunting. Luckily, many companies make travel car seats lighter and easier to install on the go. These models also emphasize portability and legroom for your child to grow into.

To find the best choice for you, we looked closely at the installation process, weight ratings, and certification status of some of the most popular options on the market today.

Best Overall

Cosco scenera next convertible car seat.

Easy to carry

Budget friendly

Sizing issues for older childen

The Cosco Scenera Next Convertible Car Seat receives excellent marks for lightness and simplicity. This affordable car seat is a great choice for those who already have a regular car seat but need a second option for traveling. Safety features include side-impact protection built into the headrest and a five-point harness that adjusts to accommodate your growing child. The car seat can be used rear-facing for kiddos 5 to 40 pounds and 19 to 40 inches tall or front-facing for those 22 to 40 pounds or 29 to 43 inches tall. The car seat will last from infancy through toddlerhood.

Use the LATCH connectors or a seat belt to secure the car seat in any rental car or taxi. It's also designed with air travel in mind: It's FAA-approved and lightweight at just 7 pounds. Additionally, its 17.5-inch width makes it a good fit for most airline seats. Other highlights include a removable, machine-washable, and dryer-safe car seat pad and a dishwasher-safe cup holder. Colors range from Moon Mist Grey to Ocean Breeze.

Dimensions: 17.6 x 15.8 x 30.3 inches | Weight Rating: Up to 40 pounds | Installation Type: LATCH

Best Lightweight

Wayb pico travel car seat.

Very compact

Includes a travel bag

Only for toddlers and older

Car seats are a hassle to travel with because they're bulky, heavy, and unwieldy. Luckily, this travel car seat by Wayb won't add much extra weight to your suitcase. Weighing under 8 pounds, the FAA-approved Pico Travel Car Seat is easy to transport everywhere you go. It's front-facing and can hold kids between 22 to 55 pounds or measuring 30 to 45 inches tall. It has an AeroWing aluminum frame that is durable yet lightweight, and the AstroKnit performance mesh lining will keep your kids comfortable throughout their journey. Best of all, this car seat folds into a small enough package to store in overhead bins and comes with a carrying bag that can slip onto your suitcase.

Dimensions: 15 x 11 x 20 inches | Weight Rating: Up to 50 pounds | Installation Type: LATCH or car/airplane seat belt

Most Compact

Safety 1st guide 65 convertible car seat.

Supports a variety of sizes and ages

Sleek design

Machine-washable cover

Complaints about installation

Safety 1st's Guide 65 Convertible Car Seat weighs 14 pounds; it's sturdy enough for everyday use yet light enough for travel. This car seat's frame is so compact that you could place three in the back of your car, making it an excellent option for larger families or smaller European rental cars. Plus, it can accommodate a wide range of weights, making it a budget-friendly pick that can last for years. It's for children who weigh between 5 and 40 pounds to use in a rear-facing position and children 22 to 65 pounds to use in a front-facing position.

Side-impact protection and five harnesses that adjust in the center ensure your child stays secure throughout their ride and help deflect impact away from their head, neck, and spine in the event of an accident. Other safety features include three buckle locations and an adjustable headrest. This car seat also has a LATCH connector system, making it easy to take the seat in and out of the car quickly. Both the cushion and cup holder are removable for easy cleanup. It's available in multiple colors.

Dimensions: 27.3 x 18.5 x 20.3 inches | Weight Rating: Up to 65 pounds | Installation Type: LATCH

Best for Bigger Kids

Graco extend2fit convertible car seat.

Harness storage makes loading and unloading easy

Rigorously crash tested

Several customizable features

Most of the car seats on this list are appropriate for children up to 40 pounds, but the Graco Extend2Fit is rated for up to 65 pounds. It also allows children up to 50 pounds to ride rear-facing and provides an extra 5 inches of legroom. This, plus a headrest that can also be adjusted to 10 different positions, ensures the child is comfortable and secure as they grow.

Two integrated cup holders keep juice bottles within easy reach and help to prevent spills. While there are multiple ways to install this model, it is easy to remember after the first time. Although this seat is designed with car travel in mind , it is FAA-approved. If you're flying economy class, consider calling ahead to check that the restraint is compatible with the airline seat.

Dimensions: 21.5 x 19.5 x 23.5 inches | Weight Rating: Up to 65 pounds | Installation Type: InRight LATCH

Best Booster Combo

Cosco finale dx 2-in-1 booster car seat.

Can fit three across

Easy to clean

Accommodates older children

Durability complaints

If you're shopping for a child aged 12 months or older, the Cosco Finale DX 2-in-1 Booster Car Seat will last from toddlerhood until after they start school. It has a 10-year lifespan and can be used as a forward-facing car seat or as a high-back booster seat. As a car seat, it's appropriate for kids between 30 to 65 pounds and 32 to 49 inches in height. The five-point harness has three different height settings, and the LATCH connectors can be used until your child reaches 50 pounds. In addition, the FAA approves the Cosco Finale for aircraft use in its car seat capacity.

It suits kids between 40 to 100 pounds and 43 to 52 inches in height as a booster seat. Its 17-inch width and 9-pound weight make it ideal for quick transfers between rental cars, taxis, and family cars back home. Other useful features include a removable cup holder and a machine-washable cover in colors that range from gray to pale pink. Lastly, thrifty families will appreciate this seat's affordable price tag.

Dimensions: 18.3 x 19 x 29.8 inches | Weight Rating: Up to 100 pounds | Installation Type: LATCH or seat belt

Most Innovative

Maxi-cosi pria max 3-in-1 convertible car seat.

Easy to buckle

Not the lightest pick

If you don't want to invest in multiple car seats, the Pria Max 3-in-1 Convertible Car Seat is your best bet. It can handle children from birth to 10 years old, making it one of the most versatile options on the market. Plus, the high-end brand makes each stage supremely comfortable for your child and easy for adults to use. It has a spring-assist harness system, so the straps don't get tangled; a one-hand magnetic chest clip; a simple integrated headrest and harness system, so you don't have to rethread as your tot grows; and machine-washable fabric. Keep in mind it comes with a hefty price tag and heavier weight.

Dimensions: 25.3 x 24 x 19.9 inches | Weight Rating: Up to 100 pounds | Installation Type: LATCH or seat belt

Best For Road Trips

Chicco keyfit 35 cleartex infant car seat.

FAA-approved

Eco-friendly textiles

UPF 50+ canopy

Rear-facing only

This car seat is a great option for road trips —or as your primary car seat that occasionally travels—as the stay-in-car base is a breeze to install correctly and the carrier itself clicks into place in one motion. When it's time to stretch your legs and explore simply detach the seat and click it into any Chicco stroller base for a lightning-fast travel combo. The base has an anti-rebound bar for added stability and extra legroom for a rider up to 32 inches tall, and the headrest has five different positions to accommodate an infant's growth.

If your plans include air travel, this is still a solid pick. The best thing about this carrier is that it can be installed in an aircraft or rental vehicle without the base, using the European or American routing method. The base and carrier together weigh 18 pounds but you'll only have to manage 10 pounds if you go baseless. It comes with removable newborn positioners so little ones from 4 pounds are ready to roll.

Dimensions: 28 x 16.5 x 24 inches | Weight Rating: 4 to 35 pounds | Installation Type: LATCH or seat belt

The Cosco Scenera Next Convertible Car Seat is light, FAA-approved, and supports young travelers up to 40 pounds. We love the accessible price point and easy-to-clean cover. If you're shopping for a toddler or older but still want to prioritize portability, go for the Wayb Pico Travel Car Seat .

What to Look For in Travel Car Seats

Installation.

All models on our list use LATCH systems and some can also be installed using the vehicle's seat belt, but you should never use both anchoring methods together. LATCH, also known as Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children, is an alternative way of securing the car seat to the vehicle without using the seat belt. Both the vehicle and the car seat must have LATCH parts to install the seat properly, but most car seats (and vehicles manufactured after 2002) will do so. The car seat has straps that come from the bottom and a tether at the top. These attach to the lower anchors in the car, found in the space between the rear back seat and seat cushion, and to the top anchor, which could be near the rear window or on the car ceiling. When in doubt, check the vehicle manual and seat instructions.

Weight Rating

Like their everyday counterparts, travel car seats include maximum weight ratings that must be adhered to. Additionally, your decision to install the car seat front- or rear-facing is based on the weight and height of your child. Most models can transition from rear- to front-facing as your tot grows, or even from front-facing to a booster seat like the Cosco Finale DX . Consider the kid's age, weight, height, and the manufacturer's notes to choose a travel seat that will give you the longest practical use.

Certification Status

Most importantly, the car seat you buy should meet all safety standards. If you're flying, look for an FAA-approved or similarly aircraft-approved seat.

"All legal car seats must meet the same crash test criteria, or safety standards, and be properly labeled," said Amie Durocher, a CPS Tech at SafeRide4Kids.com. "If you are worried about counterfeit car seats, check the label. Certified seats in the U.S. are required to have very specific language on the labels. Beware if it doesn't mention federal motor vehicle safety standards or FMVSS213 or if it lacks a model name or number or manufacture date."

Yes, you can travel with a car seat on the plane —and it's actually recommended. "We recommend that parents purchase a seat even for children under 2 who could be 'lap babies' and use the FAA-approved child restraint on the airplane," said Durocher. "This makes it safer for the child—and the parent—in case of an incident during takeoff or landing and in case of turbulence during the flight."

The hardest part of traveling with a car seat is figuring out the logistics through the airport. “Infant car seats that click onto a compatible stroller are easy, but travelers might need a car seat cart, luggage strap, or bungee cords to lug a convertible car seat through the airport,” said Michelle Pratt, founder and owner of Safe in the Seat. “Some people prefer to check their stroller with their luggage and use a car seat cart to get their child and seat through the airport easily. Others babywear or let their toddler walk and load up their stroller with all their gear, then gate check the stroller planeside.”

“Rear-facing is the safest way for kids to ride in the car, but it’s not always possible on planes due to the tighter space,” added Pratt. “If the car seat fits rear-facing on the plane, that’s best. But kids who rear-face in the car can forward-face on the plane if they are at least 1 year old and meet their car seat’s forward-facing requirements. Then they seamlessly go back to rear-facing in the car at the destination.”

Author Jordi Lippe-McGraw has researched and written about travel and lifestyle products for nearly a decade. She is also the mom of a 3-year-old. When making this list, she researched dozens of products, looking at key specs like dimensions and weight rating and the number of positive and negative reviews. While researching the best travel car seats, we spoke with Amie Durocher , a CPS Tech at SafeRide4Kids.com, and Michelle Pratt , founder and owner of Safe in the Seat.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. " Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH) Restraint System ." Accessed Feb 6th, 2023.

Related Articles

More related articles.

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Manage Your Subscription
• Give a Gift Subscription
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes

We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation.

• Travel Products
• Family Travel

The 8 Best Travel Car Seats of 2024, Tested and Reviewed

We rounded up the best travel-friendly car seats to keep your kids safe wherever you go.

In This Article

• Our Top Picks
• Others We Liked

Our Testing Process

• Tips for Buying

You May Also Need

• Why Trust T+L

Travel + Leisure / Cassie Aulie

Traveling with children can be a gratifying and enriching experience, but family vacations are also challenging because of the extra items you need to pack (and carry), including a car seat, which adds quite a lot of bulk to your luggage. That's why we set out to find the most compact, travel-friendly, lightweight, and easy-to-install car seats on the market right now.

We combed through results and feedback from three different real-world car seat tests in which we tested a total of 57 car seats, looking specifically for portable, travel-friendly options. During testing, we looked at several factors like design, features, ease of cleaning, value, and — most importantly — safety. Below, we rounded up eight of the best travel car seats to consider for your next family getaway.

Best Overall

Graco contender slim convertible car seat.

It is an excellent fit for compact cars.

The chest buckle is large and bulky.

Lugging around a heavy car seat in addition to your luggage is not pleasant, but this car seat will make your life so much easier. Not only is it the lightest car seat on our list, but it is also the slimmest, making it an excellent choice for both compact and larger vehicles (or for larger families who need to fit more than one car seat in the backseat). Installation took us about 15 minutes, and then it was pretty intuitive to use. It has several inserts that help you customize it for your child, including an infant insert with extra padding, eight headrest heights, and two reclining positions.

It also has a removable cup for snacks and drinks that you can place on either side of the seat. And while we only had to spot-clean it, if you need to wash the entire cover, you can take it off and throw it in the washing machine. The fabric is breathable and has held up exceptionally well after over a month of use.

The Details: Weighs 16 pounds; holds 65 pounds | 24.75 x 18.9 x 21.5 inches | Rear and forward modes | Belt- and latch-compatible

Travel + Leisure

Best Rotating

Evenflo gold revolve360 convertible car seat.

It’s easy to install and rotates 360 degrees.

It would be nice if it had a built-in sunshade.

Four minutes: that's exactly how much time it took us to install this Evenflo car seat after watching the instructional video. It was an incredibly easy-to-follow process, and we found the audible click and level indicator super helpful. But the most impressive feature of this convertible car seat is its ability to rotate 360 degrees, which is a complete game changer for parents (seriously, our team member who tested this car seat said it spoiled them into "never using a car seat that doesn't have this feature"). This means that the seat can transform into rear- or forward-facing in seconds without the need to uninstall the entire seat and base. Just pull one of the two levers on either side and start rotating it. This feature also makes it super convenient to place your child in the seat and buckle them because you no longer have to bend at an awkward angle. 

Comfort is also a standout feature, and the upholstery fabric of this car seat felt soft, breathable, and very high-quality (cleaning it is also a breeze). The overall padding of the car seat and the generous recline positions also contribute to a more comfortable trip. And finally, while this is not the lightest car seat at 40.6 pounds, its design is quite compact, and even if you install it in a smaller vehicle, you will be left with a good amount of legroom and recline space for the seat in front. 

Shoppers should also note that the Office of Vehicle Safety Compliance (OVSC) is currently evaluating this car seat .

The Details: Weighs 40.6 pounds; holds up to 120 pounds | 25.9 x 19.8 x 21 inches | Rear, forward, and booster modes | Belt- and latch-compatible

Best for Compact Cars

Diono radian 3rxt convertible car seat.

The seat folds, making it easy to carry.

The initial installation takes more time than some of the other options on this list.

When renting a large car is not always possible, this Diono car seat is the way to go. First, it's much easier to carry (and store) because of its slim, foldable design. And while the installation took us a while compared to others on this list (about 45 minutes to an hour), we found it to be a perfect match for a smaller vehicle similar to a Fiat 500. 

Second, buckling and unbuckling is super intuitive, and the straps never get tangled up. And even after a year of constant use, the fabric is in excellent condition with few signs of wear and tear other than some light fading. You can also remove the cover and machine wash it, another very convenient feature. 

Third, we love that even though the seat is about 17 inches wide, it features additional padding and side protection without compromising comfort. Lastly, this car seat is also FAA-approved, so feel free to fly with it.

The Details: Weights 30.6 pounds; holds up to 120 pounds | 17 x 28.5 x 16 inches | Rear, forward, and booster modes | Latch

Best With Stroller

Doona car seat and stroller.

The wheels fold up and attach to the seat.

There is no storage space, and you need to purchase the base separately. 

There is a reason the Doona car seat is a best-seller and an all-time parent favorite. It's all in the smart design that combines a car seat and a stroller in one compact product. Unlike other models, the wheels of this car seat collapse under it so you can latch it into its base (sold separately). Basically, you can bid adieu to lugging a stroller and a car seat. This is the ultimate travel-friendly stroller/car seat combo for infants and toddlers up to 35 pounds. We recommend you take your time to read the folding and unfolding instructions before you use it. It took us some time to figure out what each button was for and how to attach it to the base correctly, but it was smooth sailing once we got the hang of it.

The Doona is upholstered in a cooling bamboo fabric for added comfort, and it has a canopy for shade. The car seat also performed exceptionally well in our maneuverability category during testing — it was a breeze pushing it even with one hand. The brake was easy to engage and disengage, so this is the perfect option for a city vacation or a road trip that requires you to quickly transport your baby in and out of the car.

The Details: Weights 16.5 pounds; holds up to 35 pounds | 26 x 17.4 x 22.4 inches (folded) | Rear-facing | Latch and belt

Most Durable

Graco extend2fit 3-in-1 car seat.

This option proved to be most durable after we used it for more than two years.

The shoulder straps are difficult to adjust.

We tested this car seat for over two years, and it has held up exceptionally well against wear and tear, spills, and everything a toddler can (literally) throw at it. Graco makes some of the sturdiest, most durable car seats by focusing on quality and safety, and this is exactly why we included the Extend2Fit model in this list.

The car seat is easy to install (it took us about 20 minutes), and even if you're setting it up in a smaller vehicle, it leaves plenty of legroom and recline space. We appreciated the two deep cup holders that are perfect for holding sippy cups and snacks (and bonus points for how easy they are to clean). This car seat has a unique feature that accommodates growing kids — a retractable panel provides five extra inches of legroom, making it safer for taller infants and toddlers to ride in a rear-facing position.

The Details: Weighs 19 pounds; holds up to 65 pounds | 24.5 x 20.75 x 19 inches | Rear and forward modes | Latch

Most Comfortable

Safety 1st grow and go lx convertible car seat.

You can use the footrest in both rear- and forward-facing positions, making it comfortable no matter which way kids sit.

 It is a bit tricky to install.

Looking for a car seat to keep your little one comfortable during long road trips? This one performed well in almost all categories thanks to its easy use, design, durability, and overall value. Its size is generous (so it may not be a great fit for compact vehicles) and provides ample space for kids to grow into without compromising on padding and safety.

Safety 1st updated this model with a footrest that really impressed us because you can use it in rear-facing, forward-facing, and booster positions so your child's feet will not dangle for hours. We also love that the removable cups are dishwasher-safe and come with convenient lids to prevent messes (but in any case, the cover is removable and machine-washable). The car seat we tested still looks new, and the fabric seems spill-resistant.

The Details: Weighs 20 pounds; holds up to 100 pounds | 23.5 x 19 x 25 inches | Rear, forward, and booster modes | Latch and belt

Best for Multiple Age Groups

Graco 3-in-1 rotating car seat.

It is super easy to install and accommodates various age groups.

This rotating car seat works better in larger cars and may be a tight squeeze in smaller vehicles.

Your child should be all set for years to come with Graco's convertible car seat, which accommodates children up to 100 pounds. It rotates in a rear-facing position so you can get your baby in and out of it more easily. As for securing your child, the buckles are extremely easy to use, and the straps stay in sync — meaning that if you loosen one, the other will loosen automatically, too. And with four reclining positions, your child will be comfortable whether they are taking a nap, eating a snack, or playing.

We tested this car seat in a mid-size SUV, and it left plenty of reclining space for the seat in front. However, if you install it in a smaller vehicle, it might be a much tighter situation. And speaking of the installation, it only took us 17 minutes to read the instructions, watch the YouTube video, and install it. Finally, this seat grows with your child as it can accommodate kids weighing from four to 100 pounds. 

The Details: Weighs 30 pounds; holds up to 100 pounds | 19.1 x 24.4 x 20.8 inches | Rear, forward, and booster modes | Latch

Easiest Installation

Britax emblem 3-stage convertible car seat.

This no-fuss car seat is quick to install, and it only weighs 19 pounds.

There are no extra features such as cup holders or sensors.

If you're in the market for a no-fuss, easy-to-use car seat, this is it. Installation is standard (although you will still have to read the instructions to do it), and once you've practiced a couple of times, you will be able to install it pretty fast in any vehicle. We tested it in a sedan and an SUV, and it fits well in both (although the SUV was a slightly better fit). Thanks to the excellent design, using it is a breeze. Buckling your child, adjusting the harness, and reclining is intuitive and stress-free, which is exactly what you need when you're on the road. And while it may not have many bells and whistles, it provides excellent padding, and the fabric is soft and pillowy without feeling scratchy. 

The Details: Weighs 19.5 pounds; holds up to 65 pounds | 21 x 18.3 x 26 inches | Rear and forward modes | Latch

Other Car Seats We Liked

We tested so many car seats that we think there are a few more worth mentioning, although we didn't love them quite as much as the others on our main list.

Baby Jogger City Sights Travel System: This stroller and car seat combo is a good option for parents looking for a two-in-one. The stroller is easy to maneuver and collapses into a pretty compact and travel-friendly size. The car seat has a weight capacity of 35 pounds, so it can only be used in a rear-facing position.

Nuna Rava Convertible Car Seat : This rear-facing car seat can accommodate children up to 50 pounds, which is impressive (however, keep in mind that the seat itself is almost 28 pounds). The straps and the buckles are very easy to use and don't get in the way when you place your child in and out of the seat.

We used results from three real-world tests in which we reviewed convertible car seats, rotating convertible car seats, and car seat stroller combos to find our favorite travel-friendly options. We sorted through feedback from 57 car seats we tested, looking at weight, size, and performance in multiple categories, including ease of installation, ease of use, design, features, safety, value, and more.

We also consulted Ben Hoffman, MD, a pediatrician and nationally recognized expert in child injury prevention and education, to ensure the safety of the products we chose for real-life tests. In addition, every car seat meets the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) standards.

Tips for Buying a Travel Car Seat

Look for portability.

Portability is one of the major factors differentiating a standard car seat from one you'll mostly use while traveling. Consider its weight and size: opt for lighter and more compact car seats that you can carry without compromising safety features. Some car seats fold or feature collapsible stroller wheels — all features that come in handy when you're on the road or in transit. 

Consider ease of installation

When you're just getting off a long-haul flight and need to get in the car and drive for hours, the last thing you want is to waste time installing a car seat. That's why your travel car seat should be simple to install and use. Check if the vehicle you are setting it up in accommodates a latch or belt car seat, and make sure that yours can comfortably fit in the back seat of whatever size car you may be renting. Then, read through the installation instructions or watch the video, and make sure you don't need another adult to help you safely install it. 

Pay attention to your child's weight and height

Every car seat has strict weight and height limits to ensure your child's safety. Some might also have age restrictions, but they are not as important as children are different and grow at their own pace.Make sure you weigh and measure your child before purchasing a travel car seat. The good thing about convertible car seats is that you can use them in both rear- and forward-facing positions as your child grows so you don't have to invest in a new car seat every few years.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, but you must first ensure the car seat is FAA-approved (it will say so on the car seat). In fact, while using a car seat on a plane is not required, the FAA recommends it to ensure your little one's safety in case of turbulence, for example. If traveling on an international airline outside the U.S., check with that airline's policies, size limitations, and guidelines before your trip, as some international airlines do not allow car seats on board. Usually, using a booster seat during a flight is not an issue with airlines, and it doesn't count toward your carry-on luggage allowance.

The short answer is yes. Airlines will usually check in a car seat, stroller, or a child restraint system for free (one per child). However, the tricky part is that if you're not traveling with a child, you might have to pay to check in the car seat, so in this case, it's always best to contact the airline before your trip.

If your car seat is oversized, you will be asked to check it in at the airport, so it's essential to place it in a protective bag that will offer some sort of protection while in the cargo hold of the plane. Even if you plan on using your car seat during the flight, a travel bag can help make carrying it through the airport easier. Some car seats come with travel bags that have handles. If your car seat doesn't come with one, you can likely purchase it from the maker's website or find one that accommodates the size of your car seat on Amazon. Certain bags even feature wheels so you can roll the car seat through the airport.

Most car rental companies offer car seats as an add-on for a fee, so if you don't want to invest in one or carry it with you, you can always rent one. U.S. car rental companies must offer car seats that comply with state and federal laws. However, if you're traveling internationally, the risk is that you don't know if the car seat has been stored and cleaned properly or if it’s ever been in an accident. It also means you have to install it yourself, which can be challenging and time-consuming if you're unfamiliar with that particular brand or car seat model. 

If you're traveling with children, here are some other useful products that can help make your trip run smoothly.

Maxi-cosi Swift Lightweight Portable Play Yard : This was our absolute favorite travel crib out of 19 that we tested , with a detachable mattress and bassinet feature that you can use to adjust the crib as your newborn grows. The crib is easy set up and take down for maximum portability, and it proved to be sturdy and durable in the long run.

Cybex Coya Compact Lightweight Travel Stroller : After testing strollers in our lab , this was our favorite travel stroller for flying. We found that it folds up quickly and fits easily into airplane overhead bins. It also has removable seat padding for cleaning and a canopy that comes down for sun and rain protection.

JetKids by Stokke BedBox Kid's Ride-on Suitcase : We are expert luggage testers here at Travel + Leisure , and this ride-on suitcase was one of our favorites for kids . The ride-on design means that a kid can sit on top of the suitcase as their parents pull them using the adjustable strap. Parents can also use the strap to carry the lightweight suitcase like a shoulder bag.

Why Trust Travel + Leisure

For this article, Dobrina Zhekova worked with T+L editors to round up the safest and most comfortable travel car seats for kids of all ages from real-world tests. As a mother, she has also tested several car seats in the past five years and has extensive knowledge of airline policies and regulations about traveling with car seats. She also referenced customer reviews and expert recommendations in this article.

Love a great deal? Sign up for our T+L Recommends newsletter , and we'll send you our favorite travel products each week.

Related Articles

Posted on Last updated: April 18, 2024 Categories Kids Travel Gear

By: Author Kate

The Best Portable Car Seat for Travel For Every Age!

This post may contain affiliate links.

Sharing is caring!

Are you looking for the best portable car seat for travel with your baby, toddler or child? Are you wondering about the best car seats for airplanes? One of the biggest pains of traveling with young kids is figuring out what to do about the car seats! Seriously, I have planned so much of our travel around “well, how are we going to travel with the car seats??!”  

Not only do we want to keep our kids safe on vacation, but we also want a lightweight travel car seat that isn’t going to break the bank. My car seat for my 3-year-old (although AWESOME) is super heavy and bulky – I needed a better toddler travel car seat option! In this post, we are going to teach you all the tips and tricks I’ve learned to make traveling with car seats a breeze.

The Best Travel Car Seat: Quick Comparison

Should you buy a separate portable toddler car seat.

We love the car seats we have at home and we also spent a lot of money purchasing them. We didn’t want to take the chance of having them ruined at the airport or while traveling which is why we decided to buy a separate portable carseat for travel. The portable car seats we purchased were all super affordable, which is why we weren’t too fussed if they got scuffed or damaged in our travels. We also bought the most lightweight portable child car seat we could find! It never hurts to lighten your load when you are traveling. One extra bonus to having separate travel carseat is that you don’t have to uninstall and reinstall your car seats at home! One time was hard enough to get it all perfect, I’m happy not to have to reinstall my seats every time we take a trip.

If you are looking for some excellent basic information about car seat travel, please check out this awesome article by the American Academy of Pediatrics which is a primer on Car Seat Safety and FAQs. 

Top Choices for Portable Car Seats

We’re going to be reviewing all of these car seats in massive detail below but in case you just want to get to the good stuff, here is our list of the best portable car seats for travel:

Top Choice: Portable Car Seat for 1 Year Old

Our top choice for a 1 year old (or less) is an bucket car seat. These seats are easy to travel with as they can be easily installed using a regular seat belt. We chose the Maxi Cosi Mico 30 for its lightweight design. This is provided that your one year old has not yet outgrown a bucket car seat. Our top choice infant car seat has a weight limit of 30lbs and a height limit of 32 inches. The reason we love bucket seats is that they usually connect to strollers really easily and that means one less piece of equipment on your trip. Read more reviews of the Maxi Cosi Mico 30 and compare prices on Amazon.

Top Choice: Portable Car Seat for 2 Year Old

In the two-year-old category, we are LOVING the Cosco Scenera Next car seat. This convertible car seat is one of the most popular travel car seats for a reason, literally, every single friend of mine owns the same one. The Cosco Scenera Next is super lightweight and you really can’t beat the price . Read more reviews of this travel car seat for 2 year old toddlers here.

Top Choice: Portable Car Seat for 3 Year Old

We still love the Cosco Scenera Next for most 3 year olds . The upper weight limit for this car seat is 40lbs, so most average sized 3 year olds will still fit in this seat. This seat can be used rear facing and forward facing, making it super versatile. If you are short on space or planning to travel for a long period, you may want to consider the Ride Safer Delight for this age group. This nifty ride safer travel vest is the perfect travel car seat for 3 year old and 4 year olds that are too small for travel booster seat options. Read more reviews here!

Top Choice: Portable Car Seat for 4 Year Old

For the 4 year old and up kids, a travel booster may be appropriate. This is all depending on the size of your 4 year old – keep in mind that the majority of boosters have a minimum weight of 40lbs. We love the mifold for its compactness and portability. We have been using this car seat with our now 5 year old son and it has totally changed our lives when it comes to traveling (safely) with kids. Read more reviews and see the weight and height restrictions here.

Should I bring my travel car seat on the plane?

One of the questions that I am asked most by readers is whether it is worthwhile to bring a car seat on the plane. If your child is over age 2 and you are already going to be bringing the car seat along, my answer is always YES!! We were actually late to the game in bringing our car seats ON the plane. I hadn’t really considered it until my second son was almost 2. We’ve now brought our Cosco Scenera Next on the plane for multiple trips and it has been an absolute lifesaver! Not only is it safer to have kids safely strapped into a car seat in the case of turbulence , it also makes flying with kids SO much easier! With my son strapped in, we didn’t have to worry about him constantly trying to bother the people in front of us or trying to hide on the seats. Our kids also sleep super well in the car seats, so it really helped the travel go as smooth as possible. Check out the latest prices on the super affordable Costco Scenra Next here.

One important thing to note is that having a forward facing car seat on a plane puts your kids’ feet at premium seat kicking range! We solve this problem by seating our older child in front of the car seat. It’s something to consider before you book your seats!

Now if your child is less than 2 years old, the decision whether to bring the car seat is entirely personal. If you want to bring your seat, you’ll usually have to pay for the seat. It is definitely safer to have a child strapped in the case of turbulence. Commercial airplanes travel at a speed of 250mph during takeoff and landing and a sudden stop or jolt could send your child flying no matter how tightly you are holding them. That being said, the majority of individuals I know do not buy a seat for their child under age 2. Air travel is one of the safest forms of travel, and in the majority of cases, an infant in your lap will be just fine. One pro tip is to ask the flight attendants whether the flight is full before you board. I have scored a free seat for my less than 2 year old infants twice using this method and both times was able to bring on my car seat without difficulty.

If you aren’t planning to use a travel carseat at your destination, you may consider using the CARES airplane travel harness. The CARES travel harness keeps your kids safe on the flight by strapping them in with an extra chest strap. It is rated for kids 22-44lbs and is approved by the FAA for travel. Not only does the Cares harness keep kids safe, but it also keeps kids contained in their seats. I love that my kids are happier to stay put in their seats when they are all buckled in and relaxed. One thing to note about the CARES harness is that you do need to secure it around the back of the seat behind you. I’ve never had anyone complain about it.

How do I know if my Airplane Car Seat is Approved?

Before you fly, you’ll want to know if your carseat is FAA approved for flight.  Please note that it is important to check your local car seat regulations as these may vary from country to country. In the US,  you will need FAA approved car seats . You can look for your car seat sticker to see if yours is approved, if approved, it should say “this restraint is certified for use in motor vehicles and aircraft”

Our quick list of FAA approved car seats:

• Portable Baby Car Seat: Maxi Cosi Mico 30
• Best travel car seat for toddler: Cosco Scenera Next

Please note that booster seats are not FAA approved and cannot be taken on flights.

To check or to gate check?

If we aren’t planning to bring our car seats ON the plane (we almost always do now), we usually gate check out seats. I personally trust the gate checkers to be more careful with the objects than the regular luggage line. I have friends who have checked theirs at the desk and have had damage to the seats which made them unusable.

Should you use a car seat bag?

Check out the latest Car Seat Bags on Amazon here.

There are lots of travel car seat bags available to help you lug your car seats around the airport. Some even have backpack straps and some have roller wheels to make it even easier to bring them along. I have lots of friends who use (and rave!) about these accessories. Personally, I don’t use a car seat bag. For me, it’s just one more thing to bring along!

I also find that when the luggage attendant sees something in a bag they tend to be less careful about it! When they see a car seat out in the open they know they can’t just toss it around (hopefully!). Perhaps if I traveled with my more expensive car seats, I would be more inclined to use a bag, but for now, I’m not sold on the need for one.

How do you bring your car seat through the airport?

If you gate check you can use the seat to transport your child around the airport. Check out this neat product which straps the car seat right to a piece of luggage turning it into a stroller for the airport. Or you can even buy a travel car seat cart to turn your car seat into a temporary stroller at the airport. Read more reviews and compare prices of these travel car seat accessories here.

Personally, one of the reasons that we LOVE the Cosco Scenera NEXT Car Seat is that it fits in the basket of our Uppa Baby Vista stroller. With the car seat tucked in the bottom of our stroller, we still feel like we are traveling light! Check out the Cosco Scenera next in detail here.

Portable Travel Car Seat Rundown

Ok, now it’s time for the detailed reviews! Here are the best car seats for travel that I have tried and tested. These opinions are my own, and I was not paid or sponsored by any of these companies.

Infant Portable Car Seat: Maxi Cosi Mico

Weight and Height Restrictions:

• Up to 32 inches

FAA Approved?

Where to buy it:.

Check out prices at the following retailers:

Why we love it

Taking a car seat with an infant is the easiest and simplest. I have always used a bucket seat with my kids and I take the same bucket seat that I use at home with me when I travel. We have the Maxi-Cosi Mico 30 , and I think this is the most lightweight car seat around!  Any bucket seat , as long as it meets safety requirements, will do!

For the best car seat stroller combo,  our car seat attaches to our UppaBaby Vista which makes it great for use in the airport and also while we are on the trip. We never bring along our actual stroller seat until our little one has outgrown the bucket seat. It is too much to carry and our little ones have always been happy in the bucket seat with a few toys to play with. I LOVE traveling with my full-size stroller. Find out more about why I always bring my full size stroller here! 

Toddler Travel Car Seat: Cosco Scenera Next

• 5-40lbs (rear facing 5-44lbs, forward facing 22-40lbs)
• 19 to 40 inches

Why we love it:

For me, toddlers are the trickiest age for bringing car seats for travel. My 2-year-old certainly doesn’t fit into a bucket seat, but also is way too small for a more portable booster seat. A lot of the toddler car seats are so bulky and that makes them difficult to transport in the airport. At the advice of a friend, I purchased what I consider the ultimate portable car seat for my 2-year-old,  the   Cosco Scenera Next.   I use this car seat exclusively as my toddler travel car seat and I can not stop RAVING about it. This seat is seriously the best car seat for travel!  The car seat is SUPER lightweight, which makes it great for airplanes as it’s easy to transport and not a huge pain in the airport. It also fits perfectly in the basket of my Uppa Baby Vista Stoller (score!).

The biggest plus of this super portable car seat is the price!! It is the best value around, and with such a low price I am not afraid of it getting ruined when we travel.  We don’t use this car seat for anything but travel, and it’s also AMAZING not to have to uninstall our regular car seats from our cars because we have this one. If you are like me, installing the car seat the first time was challenging enough, I prefer to keep my regular car seats installed when I can! In the US, this portable car seat is FAA approved,  meaning that it is an airline approved car seat for travel. I prefer to take this car seat and risk it getting damaged than to take the expensive car seat that I use every day.

Portable Booster Seat: The MiFold

Best car seat for travel.

• 40 lbs – 100lbs
• 40 -57 inches

No! Booster seats are not permitted on airplanes.

My kids are still little but I recently learned about an amazing new product from my friend. The mifold car seat is a super thin and portable booster seat that was designed by a couple who also felt the pain of constantly traveling with their seats. The mifold is so compact, it can fit in your purse! The design is simple, yet safe, as it currently meets all of the safety requirements for booster seats in the US. The minimum weight is 40lbs (and 4 years of age).

My friends review? She loves it! The only complaint would be that she says her kids say the seat is not the most comfortable for long car rides. This usually isn’t a huge problem when we travel. Certainly, I would still be using my 5-point restraint car seat at home (as its safer until you reach the maximum weight!). Once my son is big enough I plan to just use the mifold for trips, carpooling, taxi rides etc. My son is soon to be 4, but far away from 40lbs. I can’t wait to try this for myself!

For those kids who are a bit small for their age,  another cool option is the Ride Safer Delight . Although a bit bulkier than the mifold, this safety restraint is rated for smaller children who are at least 3 years old and at least 30 lbs.  You can compare prices and read reviews of the Ride Safer Delight here . Check out my fellow blogger friend from The Family Voyage for a detailed review of The Ride Safer Delight .

*** Update *** My son is now almost 5 and we are LOVING the mifold! It is so great to have something that literally fits in my purse to take with us on our travels. We don’t typically use a car a lot when we travel so having this option is SO GREAT! It sure beats lugging a bulky car seat along for only 40 minutes of total drive time! At home, we use it for taxi rides as well, which is SUPER convenient on the go. Definitely, love having this option! You can read more reviews of the MiFold here.

Should you just rent a car seat for travel?

Sometimes even the most portable car seat is just too much of a pain to bring on your trip. On several occasions, especially when we have been renting a car, we have rented a car seat . A few times we had a car seat that was quite old and worn, and on one occasion we had a seat that wasn’t properly rated for my child’s size. These are the problems with renting travel car seats from a rental company. Renting from a car rental company is at your own risk, as they don’t reserve the seats ahead of time. We will still occasionally do this, especially if we aren’t planning on using the seats a lot during the trip.

There are also companies that rent out car seats specifically for travelers. These baby gear companies will tell you the exact model of car seat that you are renting. The main disadvantage to a company like this is that unless they deliver to the airport you will be left without the car seat for your trip to go pick it up! This is why we have never rented a car seat from a company like this in the past.

Don’t forget your car seat accessories!

This post would not be complete without a shout out to some of my favorite car seat accessories!

The Best Car Seat Fan

I love my Diono Stroller Fan that attaches easily to the handle of the bucket seat to keep my baby cool on a hot vacation. Check out my other favorite beach hacks in this post on what to pack for the beach with kids.

Car Seat Lap Support

If you are headed on a road trip with kids, a car seat lap organizer is a perfect accessory. This Lap Desk for kids has a spot for a drink and can easily hold a few coloring books and markers. It can be worn like a backpack which makes it easy to carry through the airport when travelling.

The Best Car Seat Head Support

If you are doing a road trip with kids, you may have concerns about ‘head slump’ in the car seat. Mostly because it was freaking me out to see my kid’s heads contorted in such ways, I bought this portable car seat head support . Now when we go on long trips my son doesn’t look so darn uncomfortable when he sleeps! And seriously, the panda face is super cute!

Best Car Seat Cover

I love this car seat cover particularly for travel. It comes with a UPF 50+ sun shade that is perfect for hot vacations where you want to keep your little one protected. Under the sun shade is a mesh layer that is perfect to keep the Mosquitos out at night. With all of the worry about mosquito-borne illnesses like Zika, I wanted to prevent my little ones from getting bit as much as possible! Check out the pricing for this car seat cover here.

What is the best stroller for travel with car seats?

We are huge fans of trying to bring our full size stroller whenever we can on vacation. We have an Uppa Baby Vista and absolutely love it. The only exceptions would be when we are really limited on space (e.g. cruise, small rental car etc ). I love our full-size stroller and I’ve found every travel stroller I’ve owned to be completely lacking in so many important features. The basket on our stroller is larger enough to carry our travel car seat – you would never see that on a travel stroller!

I’ve never regretted bringing my bigger stroller and I’ve also never had any damage to my full size strollers. I have, however, had a wheel break on a flimsy travel stroller during a flight! Check out prices on the Uppa Baby vista here .

We do have a travel stroller that we use occasionally when we are really short on space. We used the Zoe XL2 travel stroller when we went on a Disney cruise and there was no room for a full size. I like that the Zoe XL has a decent recline and a really large canopy. The storage space isn’t great but it’s the best travel stroller I’ve owned yet. You can read more reviews and check out prices of the Zoe XL2 stroller here.

Have any more travel car seat questions?

Drop your questions in the comments below and I will be sure to answer them in this post.

While you’re in trip planning mode, be sure to check out my other guides to the top  baby travel gear and toddler travel gear posts for more ideas.

Pin for Later

Recent Posts

• A Review of SoundWaves at Gaylord Opryland Hotel
• Visiting Jellystone Park at Mammoth Cave
• The Best Playground in America is at Smothers Park
• Taking The Empire Builder from Chicago to Glacier National Park
• An Honest Review of a Disney Wish Cruise – The Good and The Bad

The Best Car Seats for Traveling With Babies, Toddlers, and Kids

All products featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Talk to parents about traveling with young kids and one topic dominates the conversation. Is it which hotel in Santorini has the best Mediterranean views? Not quite. Where you can get the freshest lobster rolls in Maine ? Unfortunately, no.

The answer is car seats. Heavy, unwieldy car seats. They’re impossible to pack and even worse to wrestle onto an airplane. They’re big, they’re bulky, and they have irritating names that are hard to Google when you’re searching for, say, “how to install a massive American car seat in a tiny Italian Fiat.”

Not every country or city requires car seats, but you’ll probably still want to pack one for your family trip to Mexico or Thailand—or from LaGuardia Airport to Manhattan in a yellow cab. Why? As exasperating as car seats are, they save lives. A lot of lives. In fact, they’ve helped bring down motor vehicle-related deaths in the U.S. by 58 percent since 1975.

Most car rental agencies offer child seats, but this option is often fraught with problems. To start, they cost a chunk of change. “Major car rental companies charge between $10 to $14 per day to rent a child seat,” says Jonathan Weinberg, CEO of car rental savings site AutoSlash . “These fees add up quickly, especially if you have more than one kid.” The quality of the car seat can also be questionable. Personally, I’ve been dealt dirty seats, incorrect models, and, in one case, a seat with a safety strap that looked like it had been slashed by a machete. And while every major American car rental’s child seat policy notes that they take car seats out of circulation after an accident, this practice is not federally enforced . Finally, and perhaps most vexing after a long flight with kids, agency staff members aren’t authorized to install the seats, leaving you to the task. “After navigating an enormous car rental garage with toddlers and luggage for four—looking at you, Orlando International—it’s no fun to install unfamiliar car seats,” says Lexington-based attorney (and dad of twins) Lucas Braun.

Here’s the good news: Car seats have also annoyed a slew of smart, savvy travelers, so much so that they’ve decided to do something about it. Now a handful of light and portable child seats make it easier to keep your kiddos safe on the go. Read on for our road-tested recs of the best car seats for travel right now. Skipping the flight and just traveling by car these days? We’ve included our favorites for highway long-hauls as well.

This article was originally published in April 2019. It has been updated with new information.

Infant Car Seats

For babies and infants Talk to a mom who has lost circulation in her arm after swinging a bucket seat around the airport, or a dad who has woken a sleeping baby from a car seat at the check-in counter, and you’ll see why we seriously love the options below.

It took car seat creator Yoav Mazar close to a decade to design the Doona and bring it to market. It was worth the wait. This genius car seat, developed for babies from birth up to 35 pounds, is essentially a transformer, shape shifting from a car seat to a stroller and back again with a few button clicks. This means you always have your car seat with you, whether you need to jump into a cab in London or a Lyft in San Francisco. And when it’s in stroller mode, it beautifully navigates sidewalks and park paths. This just in: The Doona now comes in a sleek midnight black model as well as its first edition green.

Trusted car seat brand Chicco has a new car seat for babies that’s lighter than previous versions (about nine pounds without the base) and puts a premium on comfort. An extended headrest means the car seat lasts you longer, and a genius rebound bar, which pushes against the back seat, provides extra foot room for leggy littles. And while you can swing it through the airport as easily as a canvas tote through a farmers’ market, it’s also a choice option for road trips thanks to its cocoon-like coziness and large sunshade.

If you’re not up for a $500 investment, opt for an infant seat that clicks easily into a lightweight stroller base. The latest snap-and-go option from Chicco is the Shuttle, which pairs with all Chicco Fit2 and KeyFit car seats. It’s an improvement on previous stroller base models thanks to its quick fold handle, sleek black frame, and a console for essentials (your phone, a large coffee, and likely some sort of wipe). It also has one advantage on its competitors: under-carriage storage, ideal for all that stuff you can't believe you’re schlepping through the airport.

Rear-Facing Car Seats

For toddlers under two and under 35 pounds The trickiest age when it comes to traveling with car seats is when your child has transitioned from an infant seat—like the Doona—to an upright car seat, but still needs to face backwards (typically kids under two and under 35 pounds). For this short time period, we recommend doing as the car rental agencies do: Go light and go cheap if you’re flying, but invest if you’re sticking to the road.

This is a popular brand among car rental companies (and if you think about it, they make up the cost of a purchase in one four-day rental). The seat is ten pounds, easy to install, and FAA compliant, should you want to strap your kid in during the flight. And while it's bulky, you can secure this seat to rolling luggage with a strap like this one .

While this car seat model is somewhat bulky, it’s also lightweight at just over nine pounds. At under $100, it’s an absolute steal. It’s slimmer than most car seat models, a plus when you’re traveling to places like Europe where rentals are petite in comparison to your suburban SUV.

Did you know that some car seats are built with flame-retardant chemicals that are harmful to inhale? That’s not the case with Nuna, which has committed to engineering its seats without said compounds from foam to fabric. The Exec car seat might as well be a first-class ticket to comfort—even in the less popular back-facing position—thanks to adjustable leg rests, merino wool head cushions, and ventilation panels that maintain a comfortable climate.

Front-Facing Convertible Car Seats

For kids ages two to five Once children have graduated from a rear-facing car seat, they still have several years in a chair. At this stage, we see parents start to forgo car seats when they shouldn’t. These exciting innovations will inspire you to stay safe.

This road trip favorite is slimmer than most—you can fit three across a back seat if you’re hauling a litter—but it also puts a premium on well-being and safety thanks to a steel core topped with interlocking layers of foam and plastic, padded with seat, side, and belt cushions. We also love this Seattle-based company’s seats for their pop colors: cherry red, plum purple, and yellow mineral, among others. Be sure to add the waterproof seat protector —it’s a life saver when kids are snacking on the go.

This, family travelers, is a game changing car seat. Co-developed by a former Patagonia exec and his engineering-savvy team at WayB—a new company that aims to introduce innovative products to the family travel space—the Pico is safe, sleek, and a cinch to install. Its solid frame is made of aluminum, which is not only strong, but also sustainable. And the Pico’s seat folds up on-the-go, making it compact and easy to carry or stow in an overhead bin.

If you’ve requested an Uber equipped with a car seat in a city like Los Angeles, chances are the driver has pulled out this soft-backed and collapsible harness. The chair folds up into an attached bag that’s about half the size of a carry-on suitcase, so you can stow it on the plane or throw it into a duffle with the rest of your things.

For kids five and up Once your half pints have graduated out of convertible car seats, you can move onto a booster, which feels like holding a hamster after years of wrestling an elephant. Still, some boosters are large and inflexible, so opt for one of our picks below. Tend to travel by car? Choose something more substantial, like the Alta.

If you’re skipping the airport and hitting the highway, consider UppaBaby’s model for its additional safety features and headrest that will—if you’re lucky—inspire a long snooze. Unlike the MiFold and Bubble Bum, the Alta clips into a car’s anchor system, better securing it to the vehicle. It also ensures older kiddos (approximately six to ten years old) are comfortable for long stretches thanks to arm rests, a cup holder, and plenty of padding. The rear seat cushion also zips off, making it easy to clean.

Boosters, as you might guess, boost children up so seatbelts strap them in effectively. The MiFold takes the opposite approach, lowering the seatbelt via a series of lap belt clips. It then folds up on-the-go to the size of a large wallet, and can be stashed in a purse, backpack, or glove compartment.

This inflatable booster seat can be easily blown up and deflated on the go. It’s lightweight and fits into a compact travel bag when not in use. Aside from its brilliant name, it also does its part to make boosters fun, with kid-friendly colors like shamrock green and bubble gum pink.

Packing List

By signing up you agree to our User Agreement (including the class action waiver and arbitration provisions ), our Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement and to receive marketing and account-related emails from Traveller. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

A Complete Guide to Buying and Using Travel Car Seats

Everything you ever wanted to know about travel car seats but were afraid to ask*, *(because the answer is, “yes, you should bring it.”).

You probably spent a lot of time researching the best car seat for your baby. So I bet you can’t even fathom doing that all over again for a travel car seat. Below, we break down the best FAA-approved car seats that are lightweight and affordable, the best car seat travel bag and accessories, a complete guide to using car seats on planes (and what to do if you run into problems), and some legal and safe car seat alternatives .

Ready to shop? Visit Have Baby Will Travel’s Amazon Store for our list of the Best Lightweight Car Seats for Travel

The best faa-approved car seats for travel.

We can all agree that the safest place for a baby on a plane is in their own seat, in their own FAA-approved car seat . We can also all agree that lugging a bulky, heavy seat through an airport is about the last thing anyone wants to do.

Whether you’re purchasing a seat with the knowledge that you’ll be doing a fair amount of traveling, or you’re deciding to make the investment in a second seat specifically for travel, here are your best choices based on weight, “lug-a-bility,” and affordability.

The Best Car Seat Travel Bag & Accessories

There are many car seat travel bags on the market.

But, if you’re going to invest in one, the padding in this car seat travel bag protects the seat from more than just dirt or wear and tear, because we all know that airport baggage handlers aren’t always known for their gentle touch when loading and off-loading our luggage.

Using Car Seats on Planes

We know it’s not mandatory. We know it’s expensive. But we also know that the FAA recommends using car seats on planes . So, we bite the bullet and purchase baby their own seat on the airplane. We lug their car seat (or go through the expense of purchasing an additional one specifically for travel).

What happens if we run into trouble once we’re on board? Here’s how to install and use car seats on planes, and what to do if you have issues with flight attendants or gate agents.

Flying with Car Seats and Booster Seats

So I felt pretty good about our trip and the Oobr was great to travel with in spite of its size and weight, so then I wrote about it and the nice folks at Clek posted my review on their Facebook page .

And then I learned that I was doing it wrong. Quite wrong.

Using a Car Seat Without the Base

Clearly it’s preferred to use your infant car seat with the base. But, if you’re traveling with baby, it’s much safer to still use your seat without the base than to not use a car seat at all. Do ensure that your seat CAN actually be installed without a base.

The Primo Viaggio model we used when my daughter was an infant was an older model and did not have the slots. We couldn’t have used it for travel if we wanted to. But these days, pretty much every infant carrier car seat can be installed without the base.

Legal and Safe Car Seat & Stroller Alternatives for Travel

Maybe the last thing you want to do is lug your giant car seat on the plane. Especially if you don’t think you’ll be doing much driving. Maybe your busy toddler  absolutely refuses  to ride in a stroller but you know they’ll need a lift from time to time.

If you’d like to avoid buying a second  car seat for travel  or a specific  travel stroller   but these are two items you know you might need, here are some LEGAL and SAFE car seat alternatives and stroller alternatives for travel with toddlers and small children.

Click here for all posts on Have Baby Will Travel tagged “car seat”

Have Baby Will Travel  is a participant in the  Amazon Services LLC Associates/Influencer Program . If you make a purchase through this site, we may receive a small commission.  Click here to check out our Amazon Store .

• Tips for Flying with an Infant or Toddler at Every Age & Stage
• Flying with a Baby or Toddler: The Ultimate Tip List
• Baby Travel Gear
• Information & Tips for Traveling with a Baby or Toddler
• Tips for Airport Security with a Baby or Toddler
• Road Trip Tips for Babies & Toddlers
• Driving Baby: Tips for Safety While Traveling by Car

2 Responses to A Complete Guide to Buying and Using Travel Car Seats

Thank you for sharing this information! Parents should always check the quality of the car seats if they are planning to rent one. this is very important for the safety of their child!

Hey, this is awesome. We will be having family road trips and I need to buy a car seat! Thank you for this informative post!

Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

Name (required)

Email (will not be published) (required)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Travel Partners

Additional Sponsors

Site Map   •  Privacy Policy   •  About   •  Consulting

Have Baby Will Travel® is a registered Trade Mark ©2007-2024 All Rights Reserved

• Product Reviews
• Stroller & Car Seat Reviews

6 Best Travel Car Seats for Your Next Trip

Traveling with young kids requires preparation—and plenty of it. Between planning your route, packing all the essentials and ensuring you’ve got plenty of snacks on hand, there’s a lot to organize. And, of course, keeping your little one safe on the road is always a top priority. If your next family vacation involves air travel, a rental vehicle or frequent cab rides, a travel car seat will come in handy. While most airlines allow you to gate-check a car seat or stroller for free, the last thing you want on a long journey is a bulky bit of gear. Unlike convertible models , which tend to be on the heavier side, travel car seats are designed to be lightweight, compact and easy to install when you’re on the go.

Ready to start your search? Here find our picks of the best travel car seats for every age, stage and need, plus our top tips for traveling with a baby or toddler in tow.

Do you Need a Travel Car Seat?

If you’re planning to take a road trip, you definitely need a car seat. Granted, you could bring a day-to-day model with you, but a travel seat will take up less room in a packed rental car. It’s important to note that each country has its own rules and regulations, so if you’re traveling internationally, brush up on the local car seat safety laws.

For domestic air travel, a car seat is recommended, but not required. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allows children under age 2 to be held on an adult’s lap, meaning you don’t technically need a car seat. That said, both the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the FAA recommend that children are properly restrained on a flight, especially given the unexpected but common occurrence of turbulence.

Are booster seats safe for air travel?

If your little one has outgrown a car seat, a booster is a good option for rental cars and taxi trips. But the FAA prohibits passengers from using booster seats or backless car seats on flights. If you plan to take a booster seat with you during air travel, it can be brought along as checked luggage (usually without a baggage fee).

What to Look for in a Travel Car Seat

Choosing a car seat can involve a lot of research—and a travel car seat comes with its own set of requirements. To make things easier, here are some key considerations to keep in mind.

Age-appropriate. The most important factor to consider for any car seat type is whether it’s appropriate for your child’s age, weight and height. According to the AAP , children should use a rear-facing car seat until they’re at least 2 years old—or until they reach the height and weight requirements for a specific model. Children that weigh over 40 pounds can use an aircraft safety belt.

FAA approved. A travel car seat you plan on taking on a plane should have a label noting that it is FAA approved. This means that the model has been deemed safe for air travel.

Lightweight. The best travel car seats are lightweight and easy to carry. After all, you’ll need to lug it onto a plane or switch it from one car to another. Fortunately, most car seats designed for travel range in weight from 6 to 12 lbs.

Easy to install. Whatever mode of transport you choose, correct installation is critical to a car seat’s safety —so look for one that makes the process simple. Our advice? Find options with easy-to-fasten buckles and an adjustable harness to ensure a snug fit.

The Best Travel Car Seats

Whether you’re traveling by plane, train or automobile, a travel car seat makes the journey run that much smoother. Here, find our top picks for infants, toddlers and big kids.

Best affordable travel car seat

• Suitable for infants and toddlers
• Affordable price point
• Some children will outgrow it quickly due to the low position of the shoulder straps

Searching for something affordable? The Cosco Scenera may be the best travel car seat option for you. Suitable for infants and toddlers, this convertible seat can be used in a rear- or front-facing position. Certified for use on an aircraft, the compact seat is lightweight and easy to carry, so it won’t slow you down as you make your way to departures. It has all the safety features you need, including a five-point harness and side impact protection. Plus, a removable seat pad makes it easy to clean up messes; simply throw it in the wash and get ready for your next adventure. All that for $60? What a steal!

• Weight of seat: 10.4 lbs.
• Weight capacity: Rear-facing 5 to 40 pounds; forward-facing 22 to 40 pounds
• Height limit: 43 inches

Best travel infant car seat

• Seat weighs under 6 lbs.
• Convenient option for car and air travel
• Magnetic buckle holders keep straps out of the way while you secure your child
• Car seat must be used with the base for air travel
• High price point

Weighing in at just 5.3 lbs, the Nuna Pipa Lite is one of the best car seats for travel. Pegged as the lightest infant car seat available, this Best of Baby award-winning pick has a compact design, a convenient carry handle and a True Lock base that installs in as little as five seconds (yes, really!). Plus, the rear-facing seat is reliably safe thanks to a five-point harness and Aeroflex foam that absorbs and diffuses energy for superior impact protection. Better yet, built-in belt paths mean you can remove the base and use the car seat with just the vehicle seat belt, allowing you to travel in taxis without worrying about baby’s safety. And for air travel, it’s FAA certified when used with its base.

• Weight of seat: 5.3 lbs. (without sun canopy or infant insert)
• Weight capacity: 4 to 32 pounds
• Height limit: 32 inches

Best travel car seat and stroller system

• Converts from a car seat to a stroller in seconds
• TUV and FAA approved
• Rear-facing position only

Planning to bring a stroller and a car seat on your next vacation? This innovative product by Doona combines both items into one lightweight travel system. The Best of Baby award-winning product has wheels that unfold from the bottom of the seat in seconds, meaning you can go from cruising along the pavement to safely buckled into a vehicle in no time. And it doesn’t skimp on safety features—with a five-point harness, three layers of impact protection and an adjustable handle that doubles as an anti-rebound bar in car seat mode. It also comes fully assembled and can be used from day one, without any extra adaptors or inserts. The best part? It’s certified as safe by the US and European authorities for air travel.

• Weight of seat: 16.5 lbs.
• Weight capacity: 4 to 35 pounds

Best toddler travel car seat

• Lightweight; compact fold
• Travel case can be worn as a backpack
• Parents report that the crotch strap is too short

Another contender for the title of best travel car seat is this pick by WAYB. Designed for children over the age of 2, this forward-facing seat has a foldable aluminum frame that fits inside the included travel bag for easy transportation. And whether you’re ridesharing, road tripping or traveling by plane, Pico’s five-point safety harness keeps your little one safely buckled in. It's FAA approved and even fits in most airplane overhead bins.

• Weight of seat: 8 lbs.
• Weight capacity: 22 to 50 pounds
• Height limit: 45 inches

Best travel booster seat

• Easy to install
• Quick-release design
• Not suitable for children under the age of 4
• Not usable for air travel

If your kiddo has grown too big for a travel car seat, a backless booster seat is a good option for car travel. The innovative quick release design and built-in carry handle makes it easy to move between vehicles. Plus, lap belt guides and a shoulder clip allow for easy installation when you’re trying to get from point A to point B in a hurry. Again, it’s important to note that booster seats are not safe for use in airplanes. Bonus: Use code BUMP2023 on the Chicco website to get $75 off any order of $299 or more.

• Weight of seat: 6 lbs.
• Weight capacity: 40 to 110 pounds

How We Chose the Best Travel Car Seats

To decide which travel car seats are the best options on the market, we leverage our familiarity with leading baby brands to make sure items are from reliable manufacturers. We read user reviews to get the low-down on how these products work for families, and typically don’t consider anything with less than an average four-star rating. And since many of us are also parents, we rely on our writers’ and editors’ experience using these products with their own families.

When it comes to car seats, safety is paramount, so we also consulted the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines and checked that all options—bar the booster seat—are approved for air travel by the Federal Aviation Authority .

Interested in learning more about our editorial process? Read about how our team develops and reviews all articles here .

Plus, more from The Bump:

The Best Infant Car Seats

Best Toddler Car Seats to Keep Your Traveling Tot Safe

Tips for Traveling With Baby

Navigate forward to interact with the calendar and select a date. Press the question mark key to get the keyboard shortcuts for changing dates.

Next on Your Reading List

Best travel car seat options by age

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Hi! You’ve probably come here because you’re planning your family’s upcoming vacation and recently suffered that moment of dread when you realized that you have no love for the idea of slogging a 25 (or 30!) pound car seat all of creation. Or perhaps you’ve moved past that point and you’re already looking for the best travel car seat to meet your needs.

The good news is that you have options for flying with a car seat . There are plenty of hacks for moving your big car seat around if that’s what you want to do. But if you want to take your travels to the next level, consider upgrading to a lightweight car seat for travel or even a swanky folding car seat . For new parents, there are some great lightweight infant car seats and even specific travel infant car seats to consider as well.

Check out our top picks for the best car seat to travel with at each stage, and keep reading to find out what to look for when you’re shopping for the best car seat for traveling.

On this page you’ll find our pick for the best car seat for travel at each age, but if that one doesn’t meet your needs you can click the link right below for reviews of even more options.

What is the best car seat for airplane travel? Read on below and click through for age-based car seat reviews.

Best travel infant car seat

Top pick: Clek liingo

Key stats: -Weight 9 lbs -Rear-facing size limits: 4-35lbs, up to 32”

Pros: ✔ Can be installed baseless using LATCH ✔ Very compact in all directions ✔ Compatible with lots of strollers via Maxi-Cosi adapters

Cons: ✘ Expensive for an infant car seat ✘ Base is sold separately

Budget pick: Century Carry On 35 LX

Key stats: -Weight 6.5 lbs (10.5lbs including base) -Rear-facing size limits: 4-35lbs, up to 32”

Pros: ✔ Lightest infant car seat + base ✔ Budget-friendly ✔ Fits newborns well ✔ Fits most kids to 15-18 months ✔ Great for compact cars

Cons: ✘ Basic features ✘ Limited stroller compatibility

More options: Best infant car seats for travel

Best travel car seat for a 1 year old

Top pick: Cosco Scenera Next DLX

Key stats: -Weight 7lbs -Shell height 23” -Max harness height 13.5” -Rear-facing size limits 5-40lbs, 19-40” -Forward-facing size limits 22-40lbs, 29-43″

Pros: ✔ Compact ✔ Lightest convertible car seat ✔ Low price

Cons: ✘ Low size limits ✘ Hard to install in some cars ✘ Limited padding for patterned covers ✘ No extra protection in headwings ✘ Requires top tether for forward-facing

This budget-friendly travel car seat for toddler globetrotters is a reader favorite!

More options: Best travel car seats for 1 year olds

Best travel car seat for a 2 year old

Top pick: evenflo sonus 65.

Key stats: -Weight 11lbs -Shell height 25” -Max harness height 18” -Rear-facing size limits 5-40lbs, 19-40” -Forward-facing size limits 22-65lbs, 28-50”

Pros: ✔ Generous size limits ✔ More comfort features than other travel car seats ✔ Nice enough to use as an everyday car seat ✔ Somewhat narrow convertible car seat

Cons: ✘ Requires top tether , which may not be available in all countries ✘ Heavier than Cosco Scenera Next and Cosco Apt 50 ✘ More expensive than Cosco car seats ✘ Can be a tight squeeze front-to-back when rear-facing on some airlines with limited seat pitch ✘ 6 year expiration

More options: Best travel car seats for 2 year olds

Best travel car seat for a 3 year old

Top pick for rear facing or forward facing: graco contender go/slim.

Key stats: -Weight 15lbs -Shell height 27” -Max harness height 18” -Rear-facing size limits 5-40lbs -Forward-facing size limits 22-65lbs, under 49″

Pros: ✔ Fits from newborn to elementary school ✔ “Closed” belt path means no buckle in the back when forward facing on a plane ✔ Easy to install with either LATCH or seatbelt ✔ Allows rear facing past 40″ (as long as there’s 1″ of head room)

Cons: ✘ Tall shell won’t fit well rear-facing in compact cars and economy airplane seats

Top pick for forward facing only: Evenflo Maestro Sport

Key stats: -Weight 9lbs -Max harness height 18.5” -Forward-facing size limits 22-50lbs, 28-50” -Highback booster size limits 40-110lbs, 44-57”

Pros: ✔ Lasts from age 3 (as a harness) to ~age 8 (as a booster) ✔ Affordable price ✔ Easy to install

Cons: ✘ Requires top tether , which may not be available in all countries ✘ Narrow set harness straps with no covers ✘ 6 year expiration

More options: Best travel car seats for 3 year olds

Best travel car seat for a 4 year old/

Best travel car seat for a 5 year old, top travel pick: ride safer travel vest ( full review ).

Key stats: -Weight 2lbs -Size small: minimum age 3, fits best for 30+ lbs and 35-47″ -Size large: minimum age 4, fits best for 50+ lbs and 45-57″

Pros: ✔ Rolls up to the size of a 2L soda bottle ✔ Perfect for taxi rides ✔ Lowers seat belt to provide an appropriate fit for young children ✔ Keeps kids properly seated better than a traditional booster seat – even when sleeping ✔ Easy to fit 3-across since it’s only as wide as the child ✔ 5 year expiration

Cons: ✘ No side impact protection like a highback booster seat ✘ Takes practice to get belt fit right ✘ NOT permitted for use on planes

Top pick: Evenflo Maestro Sport

More options: Best travel car seats for 4 year olds

More options: Best travel car seats for 5 year olds

Best travel car seat for a 6 year old/

Best high back booster seat for travel, top pick: peg perego flex 120.

Key stats: -Weight 15lbs -Highback booster size limit 40-120lbs, up to 63″

Pros: ✔ Steel reinforced frame ✔ Rigid LATCH ✔ Tons of size adjustments for a great fit ✔ Reclines for sleep ✔ Extremely narrow ✔ 10 year expiration

Cons: ✘ Really expensive ✘ No arm rests ✘ Heavy ✘ Folded size is as big as a carry-on suitcase

More options: Best travel car seat for 6 year olds

More options: Best travel booster seat

Best backless booster seat for travel

Top pick – younger: bubblebum ( full review ).

Key stats: -Weight under 1 lbs ( really! ) -Backless booster size limit 40-100lbs, age 4+

Pros: ✔ Lightest booster seat ✔ Extremely narrow ✔ Good seatbelt fit in lots of cars

Cons: ✘ Can slide around if kids are wiggly ✘ 4 year expiration (from first use)

Top pick – older: Graco RightGuide ( full review )

Key stats: -Weight 2 lbs -Backless booster size limit 50-120lbs, 43-60″, age 5+

Pros: ✔ Extremely light booster seat ✔ Very compact booster seat when folded ✔ Narrow option for 3-across with big kids ✔ Inconspicuous option for tweens ✔ 10 year expiration

Cons: ✘ Belt guide may not stay in place securely ✘ Incompatible with some seatbelt designs

More options: Best portable car booster seat

Still researching? Pin this for later!

What to look for in a portable car seat for travel

So what makes these car seats the most travel-worthy? We look at a few key criteria to determine the best car seat for airplane travel.

Right stage for the age

The first, most basic requirement is that a car seat should be age-appropriate. I’m never going to recommend a booster car seat for a 2 year old just because it’s easier to travel with.

At a minimum, we’d suggest following the NHTSA guidelines . Kids should be in a rear-facing infant or convertible car seat until at least age 3, but ideally closer to 4 years old if possible. Beyond that, they should ride in a Ride Safer Travel Vest or a forward-facing harnessed car seat (aka the best combination car seat or even the new Wayb Pico ) until they’re big enough and mature enough to sit properly in a booster seat for travel .

Lightweight car seat

The best travel carseat options (and car seat alternatives) range from 2 to 12 pounds. The high end may sound like a lot, but it’s still a lot more manageable than the 25lb convertible car seat most families use at home!

By the same token, on an extended trip or when where you might need lot of impromptu taxi rides you might be best served by a folding travel car seat – not just lightweight, but compact too.

Easy to use

You may think that ease of use isn’t that important for carseats that won’t see a ton of use, but we disagree. We’ve used plenty of different car seats both at home and on the go, and the ones that are hard to install or use are a disaster.

Remember, you’ll (probably) be in an unfamiliar place and installing that car seat in an unfamiliar car or taxi. It could even be after a 12 hour flight crossing more time zones than you or your cranky children can count. And you’ll have kids (those same cranky ones), spouses and taxi drivers waiting on you while you figure it out. Sounds lovely, eh?

Lasts for a few years

The final feature I look for in a travel car seat is a bit on the subjective side. Ideally, I don’t want my house to look like a car seat graveyard (this was a big problem when we lived in an apartment with two kids). So when shopping for a travel car seat, especially if it’s a toddler travel car seat, I’m hoping for one that we can use for a few years.

However, in our case, I can be a little flexible. Our kids are almost three years apart so when the older kid outgrows a car seat, usually it’s the right time for his sister to start using it. Even seats that generally don’t last one kid very long have given us five or six years of service.

If storage space isn’t a concern for you, then some of the inexpensive compact travel car seats that just last two or three years could work well. After all, some of those seats cost less than a family dinner out ! Even if you just use them a handful of time, you’ve saved yourself money over renting them on vacation.

Which car seats are approved for air travel?

Almost every car seat made for the US market today is an FAA-approved approved car seat provided you use the harness . That means that booster seats are not FAA-approved and that “harnessed boosters” (also called “combination car seats”) can only be used with the harness installed.

Prefer a quick visual summary? Check out my web story on the best travel car seats for every age .

Want to know all my best secrets? Click here to learn how to travel with your car seat like a pro!

Best travel car seat FAQs

The best travel car seat depends on your child’s age and size. That’s what this whole article is about! Here are some of our top picks (scroll up for more detail): – Doona infant car seat stroller – Cosco Scenera Next DLX – Ride Safer travel vest for car + CARES harness for flight – Evenflo Maestro Sport – Graco RightGuide

Almost any car seat can be used for travel, but a lightweight one will be easier to lug around.

Yes! The FAA encourages parents to bring a car seat or the CARES harness for children under 40 pounds. To be guaranteed the ability to use your car seat, you need to buy a ticket for your child; however, many airlines will let you use an empty seat if one is available.

Almost every car seat with a harness can be used on a plane. The exceptions are the Cybex Sirona S and Pipa Nuna Lite.

Car seat travel doesn’t have to be all bad! There are many options to make it easier. You can carry a lightweight car seat by hand or try one of these hacks for heavier car seats, including strollers, carts, backpacks and more.

Best car seats for travel

Wayb Pico review: an expert and traveling parents weigh in (2024)

Continue Reading Wayb Pico review: an expert and traveling parents weigh in (2024)

Hifold Booster Seat Review: Does It Live Up To The Hype?

Continue Reading Hifold Booster Seat Review: Does It Live Up To The Hype?

Choosing a travel infant car seat (2024 reviews)

Continue Reading Choosing a travel infant car seat (2024 reviews)

What’s the lightest infant car seat? (2024 reviews)

Continue Reading What’s the lightest infant car seat? (2024 reviews)

What’s the best travel car seat for a 3 year old? (2024 reviews)

Continue Reading What’s the best travel car seat for a 3 year old? (2024 reviews)

What’s the best travel car seat for a 6 year old? (2024 reviews)

Continue Reading What’s the best travel car seat for a 6 year old? (2024 reviews)

What’s the best travel booster car seat? (2024 reviews)

Continue Reading What’s the best travel booster car seat? (2024 reviews)

What’s the best travel car seat for a 2 year old? (2024 reviews)

Continue Reading What’s the best travel car seat for a 2 year old? (2024 reviews)

What’s the best travel car seat for a 5 year old? (2024 reviews)

Continue Reading What’s the best travel car seat for a 5 year old? (2024 reviews)

What’s the best travel car seat for a 4 year old? (2024 reviews)

Continue Reading What’s the best travel car seat for a 4 year old? (2024 reviews)

Safe Traffic Systems TravelSmarter Booster Seat Review (2024)

Continue Reading Safe Traffic Systems TravelSmarter Booster Seat Review (2024)

Ride Safer Travel Vest review (2024)

Continue Reading Ride Safer Travel Vest review (2024)

What’s the best toddler travel car seat? (2023 reviews)

Continue Reading What’s the best toddler travel car seat? (2023 reviews)

Which Cosco Travel Car Seat Should You Pick? (2023)

Continue Reading Which Cosco Travel Car Seat Should You Pick? (2023)

Want a folding car seat for travel? Here are your best choices by age (2023 reviews)

Continue Reading Want a folding car seat for travel? Here are your best choices by age (2023 reviews)

Graco RightGuide Review: A Small Step for Big Kids (2023)

Continue Reading Graco RightGuide Review: A Small Step for Big Kids (2023)

Bubblebum review: full-time travel with an inflatable booster seat (2023)

Continue Reading Bubblebum review: full-time travel with an inflatable booster seat (2023)

Hiccapop UberBoost Review: How Does It Stack Up? (2023)

Continue Reading Hiccapop UberBoost Review: How Does It Stack Up? (2023)

What’s the best portable car seat for a 1 year old? (2023 reviews)

Continue Reading What’s the best portable car seat for a 1 year old? (2023 reviews)

Need a Travel Car Seat in Canada, Eh? (2023 Reviews)

Continue Reading Need a Travel Car Seat in Canada, Eh? (2023 Reviews)

Diono Monterey 5iST Review: Big Features, Small Package

Continue Reading Diono Monterey 5iST Review: Big Features, Small Package

The Best Cheap Car Seats: Backup and Travel Car Seats Under $100 (2021 reviews)

Continue Reading The Best Cheap Car Seats: Backup and Travel Car Seats Under $100 (2021 reviews)

Mifold Review: Hands-On With mifold Comfort (2021)

Continue Reading Mifold Review: Hands-On With mifold Comfort (2021)

Pink car seat options for your shopping list (2021 reviews)

Continue Reading Pink car seat options for your shopping list (2021 reviews)

Best travel car seat options by age quick picks

If you don’t have time to read through all the details to pick the right traveling car seat, here are the best options by age. Be sure to double check the size limits vs your child’s growth curve!

• Infant: Clek liingo or Century Carry On 35 LX
• 1 year old: Cosco Scenera Next DLX
• 2 year old: Evenflo Sonus 65
• 3 year old: Graco Contender GO or Evenflo Maestro Sport
• 4 year old: Ride Safer Travel Vest or Evenflo Maestro Sport
• 5 year old: Ride Safer Travel Vest or Evenflo Maestro Sport
• 6 year old: Bubblebum or Peg Perego Flex 120

• Skip to main content
• Skip to main navigation
• Skip to search

Advertisement

Our writers test and research products independently. When you buy through a link on our site we may earn a commission but this never affects our product choices.

6 best car seats to take on the plane for babies and toddlers

Looking for a lightweight car seat to take on the plane? After in-depth research and parent-led testing, these top cabin-approved car seats have all met airline safety regulations and dimensions for in-flight use, ensuring peace of mind and a safe, comfortable journey for your baby.

By Tammy Jacks | Last updated May 15, 2024

Considering whether to take your child’s car seat on the plane to your next holiday destination ? According to Mumsnetters on our forums , a travel-friendly car seat not only helps to keep your child safe and comfy during a flight – allowing them to sleep for longer if they’ve outgrown the option of having a bassinet - but it also comes in handy for taxi and car rides on the other side of your journey.

Although there are plenty of good-quality baby and toddler car seats on the market (which we've rigorously tried and tested with real parents), not every car seat is approved for use on the plane and would need to be checked in as hold baggage along with your buggy and other heavier travel items if not. 

While airlines may differ slightly in their policies, the general principle is that cabin-approved car seats must align with the airline's criteria for size, weight and safety. For in-flight use, a car seat needs approval from either the TÜV , a widely recognised safety certification in Europe, or the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US. Look for the 'Certified for use in aircraft' sticker on car seats with TÜV or FAA approval.

How we tested the best car seats for the plane

We began our research by gathering insights from Mumsnet parents on our forums, which has around 8 million monthly users. We then cross-checked our favourite car seat selections against TÜV and FAA lists to ensure they met their rigorous airline standards and were suitable for plane use amongst the most popular airlines (although it’s always a good idea to discuss your chosen car seat with your airline before you fly).

We spent hours analysing numerou s consumer reviews from retail sites and consulted industry experts, including The UK Civil Aviation Regulations (CAA), and Which? to narrow down our list.

Our recommended car seats have undergone independent safety testing and received top safety scores from the German automobile club ADAC . Where possible, we also tested the car seats out themselves with our trusted team of parent testers.

Here are the best car seats to take on a plane.

Best car seats to take on the plane at a glance

Best overall car seat for plane: Maxi Cosi Pebble 360

Best budget car seat for plane: Joie Tilt

Best convertible car seat for plane: Doona + Infant Car Seat

Best lie-flat car seat for plane: Britax Römer Baby-Safe iSense

Best easy carry car seat for plane: Cybex Aton M i-Size

Best lightweight car seat for plane: Bugaboo Turtle Air

Maxi-Cosi Pebble 360

TÜV-certified for all airlines

Good value for money

Plenty of padding for a comfortable ride

Easily adjustable harness and headrest

Reaches the maximum width limit for an aircraft  

Small integrated sun canopy

Swivel base is pricey

Price: £158 | Age range: Birth to 83cm or approx. 15kg | i-Size: Yes | Rear-facing: Yes | Weight: 4.3kg | Dimensions: 67 x 44 x 56cm | Installation: ISOFIX and three-point harness | Travel system-compatible? Yes | ADAC test: 1.8 Good | Warranty: 2 years | Certification: TÜV-approved

Tested by Mumsnet: Read our Maxi-Cosi Pebble review

With safety, reliability and comfort as its top priorities, you can’t go wrong with the Maxi-Cosi Pebble 360 when travelling with a baby. This rear-facing, Group 0+ car seat is specifically designed for newborns, which means it can be used from birth to 15kg or until your child is 83cm in length. Approved for use on aircraft with TÜV certification, the car seat may be a little wide for some airline seats at 44cm, but its 4.3kg weight makes it simple enough to carry around at the airport and in and out of the plane.

Compliant with the latest i-Size regulations , this car seat offers superior head and neck protection for your child, which is good news in the event of turbulence, and the impact-absorbing side wings on this seat make it supremely comfortable for babies. Once you’re in the car, the Maxi Cosi Pebble 360’s built-in G-CELL side impact technology includes hexagonal-shaped energy-absorbing structures that are strategically placed in the car seat's shell to enhance protection by absorbing and dispersing crash forces away from your child in the event of a side impact collision.

You’ll find soft padding all around this seat and we found this one-piece baby-hugg inlay to be really soft and snug, ideal for keeping your little one warm when the air ventilation is on.  

The Maxi-Cosi Pebble 360 can be secured to the aeroplane seat using the aircraft’s safety belt which gets threaded through the seat’s belt path on the front of the car seat. The three-point harness has a simple stay-open feature to make it easy to get your child in and out of the car seat, and we like the one-touch buckle system which opens and closes with ease. 

Adjusting the harness straps for height or length is also straightforward as you can make them as snug as you like by simply pressing the grey button at the front of the seat which will allow you to move the straps up and down or forwards to lengthen without having to rethread them.

Once you reach your destination, it’s a breeze to fit this car seat in a car or taxi, with or without the FamilyFix 360 ISOFIX base (which is sold separately, unfortunately doubling the price of this car seat). However, we think the base is worth the investment as it not only offers supreme protection for your child, but it also swivels left or right with a simple lever, making it simpler to put your child in and out of the car. (You'll also find this car seat in our best 360 spin car seats buyer's guide).

The Pebble 360 is compatible with Maxi-Cosi and Quinny buggies and can also be used with other brands such as Ocarro and Mamas & Papas Strada, provided you have the appropriate car seat adapters for those pushchairs . When your child reaches the height and weight limit for the Pebble 360 the Maxi-Cosi Pearl 360 i-Size should be used for children up to the age of four .

Read next: The best travel systems to buy right now

Search for a hotel for your next family holiday

Has comfortable, machine-washable padding

Grows with your child

Quite heavy

No ISOFIX base

Price: £105 | Age range: Birth to four years or around 18kg | i-Size: Yes | Rear-facing: Yes | Weight: 6.1kg | Dimensions: 49.2 x 42 x 61.6cm | Installation: Three-point seatbelt | Travel system-compatible? Yes | ADAC test: Not tested | Warranty: 2 years | Certification: Meets the ECE R44/04 regulation

While the Joie Tilt doesn’t have an official TÜV certification like the Joie i-Gemm 3 , for instance, it does comply with most airline’s width and weight regulations and meets the European Safety Regulation for car seats (ECE R44/04). However, it’s a good idea to check with your airline before you take this car seat on board.

The Joie Tilt, which falls within the Group 0+/1 car seat category, is made to last, covering your child from birth to four years old (or 105cm) without the need for an upgrade at the one-year mark. 

It’s a good choice for the plane too thanks to the plush and cosy seat cushion inserts (which are also machine-washable - a must for messy eaters), the i-Size side impact cushioning, the height adjustable shoulder harness and the secure five-point harness system which has cushion covers over the harness and buckle to avoid any friction.  

It can be used both rear-facing and forward-facing in a car, although airlines stipulate that car seats must be used in a forward-facing position when secured on the plane. It has four recline positions - one rear facing and three forward facing - although the tilting movement might be a little restricted on the plane as the car seat should be secured tightly to the aeroplane seat. 

One downside is that this car seat is not ISOFIX compatible, so it can only be secured with a seatbelt in the car.

Read next: The best baby carriers, wraps and slings

Doona + Infant Car Seat Nitro

Both TÜV- and FFA-approved

Dual use - converts to a stroller

Wheels fold compactly

Convenient for travel

Heavy for a car seat

Low to the ground as a stroller due to short handlebar

Price: £339 | Age range: Birth to three years or around 13kg | i-Size: Yes | Rear-facing: Yes, rear-facing only | Weight: 7.5kg | Dimensions: 60 x 44 x 66cm | Installation: ISOFIX or three-point seatbelt | Travel system-compatible? Yes - it converts into a stroller | ADAC test: 2.4 Good | Warranty: 2 years | Certification: TÜV- and FAA-approved

Designed by medical and engineering experts, the Doona + Infant Car Seat and Stroller stands out as one of the safest travel systems on the market. The car seat holds both TÜV and FAA certification, making it a safe and versatile two-in-one travel solution. However, at 44cm wide, it does reach the maximum width limit for the plane, so may not be suitable for all airlines - see our guide below for car seat rules and criteria per airline.

Featuring both an ISOFIX base for the car (sold separately) and a secure belt path, it ensures a safe and comfortable ride for your child. With a simple, adjustable headrest, Velcro shoulder pads, breathable fabric, loads of comfy padding, a secure five-point harness, a near lie-flat position and unique rocking function, the Doona+ prioritises your baby's comfort. 

Another bonus is the three different handlebar positions (forwards, upright and backwards) so it’s out of the way on the plane but ensures manoeuvrability in tight spaces when it converts to a lightweight stroller .

Once you’re ready to leave the aircraft, the quick-release wheels and one-motion operation effortlessly transition it from car seat to stroller in seconds, saving you time in the busy airport and on your journey. On the flip side, the wheels fold and tuck into the back of the seat instantly when you’re ready to install it. Simply push in the red safety lock button while pulling up the grey stroller wheel release.

While pricey, the Doona Padded Travel Bag , sold as a separate accessory, makes it even easier to transport the car seat as the bag doubles up as a backpack and takes minutes to assemble. This car seat is also available in seven bright colours, although you may need to shop around as the Nitro Black is the most popular colour.

Read next: The best 360 spin car seats

Britax Römer Baby-Safe iSense

Lightweight – under 5kg

Reclines to a near lie-flat position

Wider carry handle

Comes with automatic safety lights

Buckle can be fiddly

ISOFIX base is sold separately for use in the car

Price: £199 | Age range: Birth to 15 months | i-Size: Yes | Rear-facing: Yes | Weight: 4.8kg | Dimensions: 58 x 44 x 67cm | Installation: ISOFIX or three-point seatbelt | Travel system-compatible? Yes | ADAC test: 2.1 Good | Warranty: 2 years | Certification: TÜV-approved

Tested by Mumsnet: Read our full Britax Römer Baby-Safe iSense review

Having won the  Red Dot Design Award in 2021, the Britax Römer Baby-Safe iSense is not only packed with plenty of i-Size-compliant safety features such as enhanced side impact protection, an adjustable headrest and five-point harness, it’s also lightweight and durable with a tall seat back, accommodating little ones up to 83cm.  

This car seat is TÜV-approved and offers a distinctive feature – the ability to recline to a near lie-flat position, allowing your baby to lie flatter than in other car seats, promoting the safest, most ergonomic sleeping position, although it may not recline to a full flat position on the plane. The seat's position adjusts automatically as you change the headrest, controlled by a lever at the back of the seat. It also comes with a plush newborn insert that makes the seat safe and comfy with a nifty crotch pad to minimise the risk of buckle friction.

Another unique feature of the Britax Romer Baby-Safe iSense is its automatic safety lights that activate in low-light conditions - a handy feature on the plane, especially on long-haul flights. The two interior ambient lights have three different light settings that can be manually adjusted, allowing you to always see your little one. Additionally, the exterior installation lights help you to install the car seat in the car either day or night without hassle.  

Other features we like are the handy swivel function when used on the ISOFIX base (sold separately or as part of a bundle ), the machine-washable seat cover that can be taken off without removing the harness, and the extra-large UP50+ sun canopy that folds down and tucks away easily when not in use.

Although the Baby-Safe i-Size car seat is travel system-compatible and works with any Britax Römer pushchair, it's only compatible with a few other brands including Joolz, Babyzen, Bugaboo and Silver Cross, to name a few.

Read next: The best lie-flat car seats for newborns

Cybex Aton M-i-Size

Has an easy-carry handle

Lightweight (just over 4kg)

Suitable for taller babies up to 87cm

Has extra wide Y-harness straps

Base and travel system adaptors not included

Headrest is small for upper age limit

Price: £170 | Age range: Birth to 2 years | i-Size: Yes | Rear-facing: Yes | Weight: 4.2kg | Dimensions: 66 x 44 x 39-56.5cm | Installation: ISOFIX or three-point seatbelt | Travel system-compatible? Yes | ADAC test: 1.6 Good | Warranty: 2 years | Certification: TÜV-approved

Weighing in at just over 4kg and built with a wide, sturdy handle, the Cybex Aton M-i-Size is easier to carry than the other heavier car seats on our list. Approved for use on aircraft with TÜV certification, and with one of the best ADAC ratings out of all the cabin-approved car seats on our list, you can rest assured that this one will keep your baby safe and secure both on and off the plane. 

Like most of the other rear-facing car seats we feature here, this car seat can be easily secured on a plane seat by using the lap belt across the front of the seat, threaded through the belt guides. As far as infant car seats go, this one lasts longer than you might expect from a Group 0+ car seat. According to Cybex, you can use it until your child is two years old or weighs 13kg thanks to the 11 adjustable height positions which will accommodate your child's growth.

Additional safety features such as shoulder and head protectors, along with an energy-absorbing shell, offer extra protection in side-impact collisions or turbulence on the plane. It’s also softly padded with extra-wide harness straps to keep your little one secure on a flight or in the car. Plus, it has a great cushioned newborn inlay which can be easily removed, leaving plenty of space in the seat for older babies. 

However, the headrest is a little small and may not be as comfortable for babies closer to the upper height limit. On a positive note, this car seat has one of the largest, UP50+ sun canopies (XXL) we’ve seen, protecting your child from rain, wind or sun when attached to a buggy. 

Additionally, it’s designed to seamlessly integrate with pushchairs from both Cybex and GB brands and it's available in seven bright colours. 

Read next: Can you take a pram on a plane?

Bugaboo Turtle Air

Super lightweight (only 3kg)

Great quality

Soft Merino wool insert

Good safety rating

TÜV-certified

Pricier than other infant car seats

Compatible ISOFIX base  is bulky

Price: £209 | Age range: Birth to 15 months or 13kg | i-Size: Yes | Rear-facing: Yes until 83cm | Weight: 3kg | Dimensions: 69 x 44 x 59.8cm | Installation: ISOFIX or three-point seatbelt | Travel system-compatible? Yes | ADAC test: 1.6 Good | Warranty: 2 years | Certification: TÜV approved

TÜV-certified, the Bugaboo Turtle Air by Nuna is designed to fit most airline seats, but it's advisable to check with the airline you’re travelling with, especially if seats are narrower than 44cm. 

As the lightest car seat on our list at only 3kg, you might assume that the Bugaboo Turtle Air isn’t as safe or robust as the other car seats we’ve featured, but don’t let its light weight fool you. There’s a reason why this rear-facing infant car seat has impressive ADAC safety scores. It’s made with a durable, protective outer shell and Tailor tech™ memory foam in the headrest for shock absorption, plus it’s built with EPP energy-absorbing foam for enhanced side impact protection. 

The ultra-luxe Merino wool inlay is soft and breathable, making it a great choice for sensitive skin. Keep in mind that this car seat only has a three-point rather than a five-point harness, but it’s still cleverly designed to keep your baby secure whilst in the plane or the car.

With easy portability and large UPF50+ sun canopy with an exclusive peek-a-boo window and secured with magnetic clips, this car seat ensures your baby stays comfortably protected in a snug cocoon.

For daily use and to turn the Turtle Air into a spin car seat, you can purchase the Bugaboo 360 ISOFIX base by Nuna . Although it’s as expensive as the car seat itself, the base has a convenient 220-degree swivel rotation, allowing easy strapping of your baby into the seat before adjusting it to the proper travel position. Plus, the one-click true lock installation, safety indicators, shock-absorbing materials and a crumple zone in the stability leg work together to enhance safety by redirecting impact away from your baby.

Read next: The best cabin-approved strollers

Can I take a car seat on a plane?

Yes, you can take a car seat on a plane in the UK. Most airlines allow passengers to use an approved car seat for infants and young children during the flight. However, there are a few points to consider:

Different airlines may have specific rules and requirements regarding the use of car seats on planes. It's advisable to check with your airline in advance to understand their policies. See our list of airlines with their respective regulations below.

Ensure that your car seat has either TÜV approval or FAA approval (if you’re flying to or within the United States).

Be familiar with the installation instructions for your specific car seat. Some airlines may require you to follow certain guidelines for securing the seat in the aircraft.

Generally, car seats in the Group 0+ category (for infants from birth to approximately 15 months old) are accepted on planes due to their compact size and lightweight design.

Read next: Maxi-Cosi Nomad Plus foldable travel car seat review

Can you take an ISOFIX base on a plane?

If you have a car seat with an ISOFIX base, you can bring the base on the plane, but it’ll have to be checked in and put in the hold. ISOFIX bases aren't compatible with planes since they're designed to anchor securely to a vehicle's chassis, and planes lack ISOFIX anchor points. When flying, you’ll need to secure the car seat using the seatbelt on the aircraft.

How do I install a car seat on a plane?

Installing a car seat on a plane in the UK typically involves using the aircraft seatbelt to secure the car seat. Here are general steps to install a car seat on a plane:

If possible, choose a window seat for installing the car seat. This helps you avoid blocking the path for other passengers in the event of an emergency.

Lift both armrests if possible.

Place the car seat in the aircraft seat and secure the car seat using the aircraft seat belt. Thread the seatbelt through the designated belt path on the car seat and buckle it securely. Ensure the seatbelt is snug. Press down and back on the car seat as you tighten the seat belt.

Then, adjust the harness straps on the car seat to fit your child securely. Follow the manufacturer's instructions for proper adjustment.

Once installed, check the car seat for stability. It should be securely fastened and not wobble.

Be sure to pay attention to any specific instructions given by the airline crew regarding the use of car seats during the flight.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) also maintains that car seats must be forward-facing on the plane, even if it’s a rear-facing car seat. This generally isn’t an issue because the plane’s belt buckle can always be routed through the seat belt guide on the car seat. Bear in mind that, in infant seats, the buckle will go over your child’s legs, which is normal.   

Can I take a car seat that isn't approved for use on a plane?

While you can take any car seat on holiday and have it checked in the hold, if you’re keen to use the car seat on the plane, it’s best to avoid using one that doesn't have the necessary approval, i.e. isn’t TÜV- or FAA-approved, as it might not meet the required safety standards for air travel, or be the correct weight and size for the aircraft seat.

Do I have to use a car seat on a plane?

No, using a car seat on the plane is a personal choice. However, little ones do need to be secured on the flight. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) states that “Infants under the age of two need to be secured whenever the seat belt sign is on. This can be achieved through the use of a seat belt loop provided by the airline to secure the infant on an adult’s lap, or by using a child restraint device i.e. car type seat, or an alternative provided by the airline.”

What are the benefits of taking a car seat on a plane?

Taking a car seat on a plane can offer several benefits:

Safety: Using a car seat on a plane provides an additional layer of protection for your little one during the flight, especially in the event of turbulence.

Familiarity and comfort: If you’re taking a trusted car seat on board, your child will already be familiar with it, making it a comfortable and secure space during the journey. This familiarity can contribute to a smoother travel experience.

Consistent rest position: Car seats are designed to provide proper support and a comfortable rest position for infants and young children, which can be especially important during long flights.

However, according to the Lullaby Trust , healthcare professionals specialising in infant care, safety experts, and the majority of car manufacturers advise against keeping babies in a car seat for more than two hours continuously, emphasising the importance of taking breaks.

Ease of transport: Cabin-approved car seats are lightweight, easy to use and portable, plus they’re designed for easy installation, making it convenient for you to transport your child safely both in the car and on the plane.

Use in transit: While it’s possible to hire a car seat, many parents prefer using their own trusted car seat during taxi rides or transfers at the destination, as this ensures their child's safety during various modes of transportation. By taking your own car seat, you’ll also be sure of its history. 

Potential cost savings: Renting a car seat at your destination can be expensive. Bringing your own car seat can be a cost-effective option, especially if you plan to use it during your trip.

These Mumsnetters took their car seats on the plane and this is what they had to say: 

Mumsnetter dramalamma says, “I've done both car seat and none with an under two in own seat. It was a lot easier with a car seat because it's not just about the take-off and landing - if there is any turbulence or any other reason the seatbelt sign is on (including them forgetting to turn it off!) you have to pick your child up and have them on your lap which can be an absolute nightmare when it's a long haul flight and they've just gone to sleep!”

Mumsnetter, Genegenieee agrees and adds, “When we flew long haul with children under two, but they were too big for a bassinet, we booked them a seat and took a car seat in the cabin. Far easier to have them in a harness seat belt than a lap belt during the flight. Mine just used to sleep.”

What are the car seat criteria for the main airlines?

According to Maxi-Cosi manufacturers, any approved child seat should have a maximum width of 44cm, ensuring that it will fit in most aeroplane seats. Here are the specific airline requirements in terms of seat width and restrictions:

EasyJet : Car seat should not exceed 44cm and must be used in a forward-facing position.

Ryanair : Car seat should not exceed 43cm, must be airline approved and have a five-point harness.

TUI : Car seat should not exceed 40.64cm, must have a secure harness and adhere to British Safety standards. It should also be used in a forward-facing position.

British Airways : Car seat should not exceed 43cm and must be used in forward-facing position.

Air France : Car seat should not exceed 44cm or 42cm if your seat is in the first row of the Economy cabin. It must be secured with the seat belt.  

Air Canada : Car seat should not exceed 44cm and should be airline approved. It must have a suitable harness system.

Aer Lingus : Car seat should not exceed 43cm and must be secured on the aircraft seat by the normal aircraft lap strap. It must be used in a forward-facing position.

Virgin Atlantic : Car seat should not exceed 43cm and must always be secured to the host seat.

Emirates : Car seat should not exceed 44cm and must be TÜV- or FAA-approved. It must only be used in a forward-facing position.  

Jet2 : Car seat should not exceed 42cm and must comply with European Safety Standard requirements of United Nations ECE R 44 (UN/ECE 44).

Qantas – car seat should not exceed 43.7cm and must be used in a forward-facing position. It must comply with European Safety Standard requirements of United Nations ECE R 44 (UN/ECE 44). Qantas also states that car seats can't be located in an aisle seat or in an exit row.

For children under the age of two, Jet2 also states that the car seat must:

Be securable with a lap strap, not over your child

Include manufacturer's instructions stating suitability for air travel with lap strap

Have a single release-type harness securing your child’s lap, chest, and shoulders

Preferably placed in a window seat

Be the sole car seat on the row segment

Be forward or rear-facing

How to choose the best car seat for the plane

When choosing a car seat for use on a plane in the UK, there are several factors to consider:

Approval for air travel: Firstly, the car seat you pick for the plane needs to be TÜV- or FAA- approved. It’s also important to check your specific airline’s criteria (use our guide above as a start), as their rules and regulations differ slightly. The good news is that all the car seats on this list are approved for use on most popular airlines.

Size and weight: Check the dimensions and weight of the car seat to ensure it meets the airline’s requirements. Note that preferences for seat width can vary among airlines. For example, TUI may prefer a narrower seat compared to British Airways. Also consider the weight of the car seat since you'll need to carry it through the airport and onto and off the flight. It's important to choose one that's manageable for you.

Comfort for your child: Ensure that the car seat is comfortable for your child, especially if it's a long-haul flight. Look for features such as adequate padding, an adjustable harness and headrest, and the ability to recline as this is the safest and most comfortable position for babies from 0-6 months.

Cleaning and maintenance: Choose a car seat with a removable and machine-washable cover for easy cleaning, as travel can be messy!

How much should I spend on a car seat for the plane?

When considering which car seat to get for the plane, keep in mind that prices can range from £80 to over £300. The amount you spend will depend on various factors such as the brand of car seat, the overall quality of the padding and materials, the safety features and duration of use. Most car seats on our list cater to babies from birth to around age four.

Given that car seats are a significant investment, it's essential to choose one that can serve dual purposes – for use on the plane and in your car at home. You’ll also want to ensure that your chosen car seat is compatible with a variety of travel systems and pushchairs to extend its use.

About the author

Tammy Jacks has 15+ years' experience in the publishing industry, enjoying a long and fruitful career as Managing Editor and Health & Beauty Editor for Woman & Home magazine in South Africa. She later went on to become Assistant Editor of the popular South African parenting title Living and Loving, and has written for numerous lifestyle publications including Oprah Mag SA, Health Intelligence, Your Family Magazine, Longevity, and pharmaceutical company Clicks Clubcard Magazine, as well as edited books for popular fitness influencers and health professionals.

Tammy is a distinguished researcher and writer in the field of child safety, with a notable focus on the critical domain of car seats. Her extensive expertise and commitment to child safety, particularly in the context of air travel, have made her a trusted authority in providing comprehensive insights and guidance to parents and caregivers looking for the right car seat for their children. 

As a mum to an eight-year-old, Tammy has personally tried and tested numerous car seats over the years, across all age categories. Her specialised attention to car seats for the plane involves scrutinising what's essential for safe air travel with children.

Advertisement

• Baby and kid

The Best Infant Car Seats

By Christina Szalinski

Before you make that cautious, white-knuckled first drive home with your new baby, you need to be armed with the proper equipment.

You can use an infant car seat from a child’s birth until they measure around 30 inches or weigh around 30 pounds. It varies by family, but the seat is likely to be in the mix until the child is between 9 months and 2 years of age.

All infant seats sold in the US are required to meet the same safety standards. But since there are more than 60 models available to choose from, navigating the purchase can be daunting. We’ve spent the past six and a half years consulting safety experts, scouring reviews, talking to fellow caregivers, and putting our top contenders to the test in the real world. We've settled on four infant car seats that do the best job of providing a safe and comfortable experience for you and your precious cargo: The Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is our top pick, the Chicco KeyFit 30 is our runner-up, the Chicco KeyFit 35 is our also-great pick, and the Clek Liing is our upgrade pick.

Everything we recommend

Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX

The best infant car seat.

The SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is easier to install, adjust, and operate than seats that cost far more. And it has an added safety feature: an anti-rebound base.

Buying Options

Chicco KeyFit 30

A totally solid, tried-and-true infant car seat.

The Chicco KeyFit 30 is easy to install and to use, and it delivers on its good reputation.

Chicco KeyFit 35

Like our runner-up pick, with a few notable upgrades.

This seat is just as simple to install and use as the KeyFit 30, and it has some upgrades—including an anti-rebound base and a European belt path for easier no-base installs when you’re traveling.

May be out of stock

Upgrade pick

An infant seat in a class of its own

This model is amazingly easy to install and is engineered to prevent user error (color-coding galore!). Plus, it has a huge sun canopy and the added safety feature of a load leg.

How we picked

A secure fit is crucial to safety, so we prioritized seats that were intuitive to install, without the need for excessive force.

We evaluated independent crash-testing scores and ease-of-use ratings (if available), as well as the seats’ individual safety features.

Safety experts encouraged us to focus on how the seats performed in the real world, rather than conducting our own crash testing.

We made sure that our picks were pleasant to carry, adjust, and operate.

If you have no experience with infant car seats, here’s what you need to know: An infant car seat is a bucket-like carrier that secures a baby with a five-point harness. It is designed to face the rear of the car, and the bucket carrier clicks in and out of a base that stays installed in the back seat. (The seats in the photograph above are shown clicked into their bases.) You install the bases using either the vehicle’s seat belt or the LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) system, which lets you attach a pair of metal hooks built into the base to a set of anchors built into the car. If you choose, you can buy multiple bases, so you can use the same bucket carrier in different cars without having to reinstall anything. You could also install the seat on its own with just a seat belt (no base)—say, if you’re traveling or taking a taxi. Whichever infant seat you choose, we’ve included helpful tips on how to safely use and maintain it.

The Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX provides the total package of user-friendliness, quality, and value. It’s one of the simplest infant car seats to install when you’re using the base, whether you install it with a seat belt or the LATCH method. This stylish seat has some bells and whistles usually reserved for pricier models, such as a removable seat pad for quicker cleanup, harness straps that you don’t have to undo and rethread to adjust, and one-handed handle adjustment. This seat also has the added safety feature of an anti-rebound base (a metal bar built into the base of the seat), which can help limit the amount the seat rotates (or rebounds) after the initial impact of a crash. At 10½ pounds, the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is the heaviest of our picks. But our testers didn’t think it was too heavy to carry comfortably, and we found it was easy to operate and to click in and out of its base. The seat can accommodate babies up to 32 inches or 35 pounds (this is the upper range of the category, and it’s likely more than most people end up needing). The only real drawback to the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is that we found its no-base, seat-belt-only install tricky to pull off; we had difficulty getting the seat in snugly (a common problem with infant seats that have an American belt-path configuration). Most people prefer to use the base with their infant seat anyway, so this may not be an issue for you. However, if you plan to often go without a base—say, for frequent taxi rides or travel—you might want to consider our also-great pick, the Chicco KeyFit 35, or our upgrade pick, the Clek Liing, both of which are better for baseless installs. Also, the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is not as compatible with as many strollers from various brands as our other three picks are.

Seat weight (without base): 10½ pounds

Baby height, weight limits: 32 inches, 35 pounds

Stroller compatibility: Without the purchase of an extra adapter, this seat works with Graco strollers, the Baby Trend Snap-N-Go , and many Joovy strollers (PDF) . With an adapter (sold separately), it’s compatible with more brands’ strollers, including those from Baby Jogger, BOB, Mockingbird, and Thule.

The Chicco KeyFit 30 is a crowd-pleaser, and it’s been a longtime favorite for a reason. The KeyFit 30 is easy and intuitive to install, particularly when you’re installing the base with the LATCH system. Installing the base with the seat belt is also simple, though that method does require some force to get the base in tightly (we had to sit on the base to apply enough pressure). As with our top-pick Graco seat, this Chicco model’s seat-belt-only, no-base install leaves a lot to be desired, and installing it snugly is a challenge. The KeyFit 30 is relatively lightweight—about a pound lighter than the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX—and comfortable to carry, and it’s simple to adjust. The bucket seat smoothly clicks in and out of the base. It has a lower weight and height limit than our other three picks, so it may not be ideal for larger-than-average babies or for families that want to use an infant seat longer. But it should be able to accommodate most tots for over a year, which is usually plenty. The KeyFit 30 is missing some of the convenient extras that the Graco seat has, such as a no-rethread harness, a removable seat pad for easy cleaning, and one-handed handle adjustment. The KeyFit 30 also lacks an added safety feature, like the anti-rebound base on the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX and the Chicco KeyFit 35 or the load leg on the Clek Liing. We consider those to be bonuses rather than essentials, however. (Note: The Chicco KeyFit 30 ClearTex is the same seat, available at the same price. But rather than the standard polyester fabric, its cover is made with Chicco’s newer ClearTex fabric, which has no added chemicals and has received a Greenguard Gold Certification for lower chemical emissions.)

Seat weight (without base): 9½ pounds

Baby height, weight limits: 30 inches, 30 pounds

Stroller compatibility: Without the purchase of an extra adapter, this seat works with many Chicco strollers (not all Chicco strollers accept infant car seats, and some require an extra adapter), the Baby Trend Snap-N-Go , and many Joovy strollers . With an adapter (sold separately), it’s compatible with strollers from many more brands, including Baby Jogger, BOB, Britax, Mockingbird, Thule, and Uppababy. (Note: It doesn’t work with the Britax B-Lively.)

The Chicco KeyFit 35 offers all of the things we love about the Chicco KeyFit 30, our runner-up pick—namely, it’s super user-friendly and easy to install—plus a few appealing upgrades. The KeyFit 35 comes with the added safety feature of an anti-rebound base, like our top pick, the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX. And like our upgrade pick, the Clek Liing, the KeyFit 35 has a European belt path (a rarity in the US); this allows you to install the seat more securely when you’re not using the base—a major plus for families that frequently travel or take taxis. This seat also has a convenient no-rethread harness (similar to the Graco seat’s), so you won’t have to take apart and reassemble the harness to make height adjustments as your child grows. The KeyFit 35 can accommodate passengers up to 32 inches and 35 pounds (hence the “35”), in contrast with the KeyFit 30’s 30-inch, 30-pound maximum; this may not be an issue for most folks, but it could be helpful if you have a bigger baby or you’d prefer to use your infant seat longer (before switching over to a convertible seat). The main downsides of the KeyFit 35 are its weight and price: It’s half a pound heavier than the KeyFit 30, and it typically costs more than the KeyFit 30 or the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX; the KeyFit 35 is still a very good value considering its combination of desirable features. (Note: The Chicco KeyFit 35 ClearTex is the same seat, available at about the same price. But its cover is made with Chicco’s newer ClearTex fabric, which has no added chemicals and has received a Greenguard Gold Certification for lower chemical emissions.)

Seat weight (without base): 10 pounds

Stroller compatibility: Without the purchase of an extra adapter, this seat works with many Chicco strollers (not all Chicco strollers accept infant seats, and some require an extra adapter) and many Joovy strollers . With an adapter (sold separately), it’s compatible with strollers from many more brands, including Baby Jogger, BOB, Mockingbird, Thule, and Uppababy.

If it weren’t for the price of the Clek Liing , we’d tell everybody to get one—it’s an exceptionally well-designed, well-executed car seat. We’ve never come across another infant seat that is quite this easy to install; it is so cleverly engineered that installing it with the base (using either the LATCH system or the seat-belt method) requires minimal effort. Part of what makes the Liing so simple to install and operate is that Clek has incorporated color-coded indicators throughout the seat (green means you’re good, red means something is amiss), which takes the guesswork out of using it correctly. And unlike the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX and the Chicco KeyFit 30, the Clek Liing is also easy to install snugly if you’re using it without the base. This is because, like the Chicco KeyFit 35, it has a European belt-path configuration, which provides a more secure fit than the American configuration. The Liing comes with the added safety feature of a load leg, a metal support rod that sits between the car seat and the vehicle floor; in an accident, the load leg absorbs some of the initial impact of the crash and limits the amount that the seat can move. At 9 pounds, the Liing is the lightest of our picks to carry. The seat has the same height and weight allowances (32 inches and 35 pounds) as the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX and the KeyFit 35, and it comes in a range of stylish, high-end fabric options. Unlike our top pick from Graco, this Clek seat does not offer a no-rethread harness, a removable seat pad to make cleanup easier, or one-handed handle adjustment, and those omissions are disappointing (especially considering how much this seat costs). But the Liing’s sun canopy is the biggest we’ve seen, and this seat has the longest life span and best warranty of our picks.

Seat weight (without base): 9 pounds

Stroller compatibility: Without the purchase of an extra adapter, this seat works with many Joovy strollers . With an adapter (sold separately), it’s compatible with a wide range of strollers from other brands, including Baby Jogger, Babyzen, Bugaboo, Colugo, Thule, and Uppababy. (See the full list on the Clek website .)

The research

Why you should trust us, who should get this, what about stroller compatibility and stroller “systems”, understanding optional safety features, how we tested, what about crash testing, our pick: graco snugride snugfit 35 dlx, runner-up: chicco keyfit 30, also great: chicco keyfit 35, upgrade pick: clek liing, other good infant car seats, what’s the law on infant car seat use, the competition, care, use, and maintenance.

Over the course of researching this guide, we spoke with more than 20 industry experts, including current and former employees of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal agency responsible for vehicle and car seat safety. We consulted multiple certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians (CPSTs), engineers, and physicians, and we conducted interviews with representatives from seven leading car seat manufacturers.

We also talked to scores of caregivers about their car seat experiences, scanned hundreds of online owner reviews, and read dozens of articles and reviews from reputable sources, such as BabyGearLab and Car Seats for the Littles .

The 2018 version of this guide was written by Rebecca Gale, a Washington, DC–based reporter; as part of the research and testing process, Rebecca became certified as a CPST herself. Rebecca’s articles on policy and parenting have appeared in outlets including The New York Times and The Washington Post. She’s also the author of Wirecutter’s guide to the best booster car seats .

Christina Szalinski, the current author of this guide, is a science writer with a PhD in cell biology whose reporting on health has appeared in Scientific American , Undark , and more . In addition to writing Wirecutter’s updated guides to infant car seats, convertible car seats , and travel car seats , she is responsible for Wirecutter’s guides to the best baby formula and kids face masks . Christina has three children; she can frequently be found ferrying them to soccer practice and play dates in her Honda Odyssey minivan.

Amid all the lengthy lists of baby “must-haves,” the one item that’s not up for debate is a car seat. If you’re going to ride in a car with your baby, you need one. And most hospitals, in compliance with guidelines established by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), do not discharge a newborn until a staff member has visually confirmed the presence of a car seat to transport the baby safely home.

Several qualities distinguish dedicated infant car seats from larger convertible and all-in-one car seats , many of which have been designed to accommodate a wide range of weights and heights (from newborns on up). For starters, while convertible and all-in-one seats start out in a rear-facing position for younger passengers and then eventually get turned around (we have tips on when to make the switch ), an infant seat is designed to be used rear-facing only. And with good reason: This position is the safest, and it provides the most protection for small children.

Unlike convertible car seats, infant seats are bucket-shaped and come with a detachable base and a handle so that parents or caregivers can easily click the seat in and out of the vehicle and carry the baby around in the seat (or attach it to a compatible stroller). This is a handy design because it saves you the trouble of taking your baby out of their infant car seat every time you need to make a transition—say, from the car to the pediatrician’s office. Just keep in mind that even though infants do sleep a lot—and they’re likely to doze off during outings—it is not safe to use car seats as primary sleeping devices or to let your baby sleep in one for an extended period of time . (They should be sleeping on a flat, firm surface instead.)

Babies outgrow most infant car seats by the time they reach 30 to 32 inches in length or weigh 30 to 35 pounds, whichever comes first. The average baby reaches that height range sometime between 12 to 19 months. But they’ll probably be over 3 years old before they hit 35 pounds, so for most people the height limit is more relevant than the weight limit.

Many of the caregivers we interviewed acknowledged that they had moved their child to a rear-facing convertible car seat long before the child officially outgrew their infant seat—typically at the point when the caregivers found the baby had become too heavy to carry in the bucket seat. Most people don’t use an infant car seat for more than a year or a year and a half before switching to a convertible. But the click-in, click-out option during those early days, when the child is still light enough to be easily portable, is certainly convenient.

For trips that involve plane travel and a different car at the destination, we recommend that caregivers use their regular infant car seat, but without the base—that is, installed with the seat belt only. And for caregivers who expect to travel quite a bit, or those who rely heavily on taxi services and want to have a single seat-and-stroller combination, we recommend the Doona , a pick in our guide to travel car seats .

There are more than 60 infant car seat models for sale in the United States. To cull the herd, we studied online customer reviews and coverage from other media outlets, including BabyCenter , BabyGearLab , The Car Seat Lady , Fatherly , and Mommyhood101 . We interviewed nearly 20 experts on car seat safety, policy, and installation. And we considered the available research data and safety ratings.

All manufacturers selling seats in the US must subject their car seats to crash testing and meet NHTSA safety standards (PDF) . To ensure that manufacturers are adhering to the regulations, the NHTSA conducts what it terms “safety compliance testing” of multiple seats each year, running the car seats through the prescribed crash-testing protocols to confirm that they’re in compliance, as promised. And the NHTSA collects those results in its database . We studied the results and factored them into our decision-making when possible. (Unfortunately, not every seat we considered had a report in the database. At the time of our research and testing, our top pick, the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX , was a relatively new seat, so its report was not available.)

But we were cautious not to be directed by crash-testing data alone. Although some seats have better crash-testing scores than others, it’s challenging—even for experts—to know whether those small variations actually translate to meaningful differences in real-world performance. (See What about crash testing? for more details.) Since proper installation has such a significant impact on how a car seat performs, we also consulted NHTSA ease-of-use ratings , which rank seats on a scale from one to five stars. Keep in mind, however, that those star ratings are based on multiple categories: an evaluation of the instructions (that is, how clear and thorough the manual is), the vehicle installation features (how the seat’s features perform in an install), an evaluation of the labels (how clear and thorough the labeling is on the seat), and securing the child (how the seat’s restraint features work).

All four categories are pertinent. But the NHTSA may dock a seat’s rating for, say, the seat’s label not having a complete illustration of a child wearing the restraint; in our opinion that’s less important than whether a layperson can install the seat’s base snugly. So even though the NHTSA ease-of-use ratings are helpful, they don’t always line up with our own field-testing experiences and takeaways.

We also took into account that since the first version of this guide, in 2018, many more infant seats have begun offering added safety features, such as load legs and anti-rebound bases (see Understanding optional safety features for details). These features are designed to reduce the seat’s motion or absorb some of the impact in a crash, and we can appreciate their potential benefits. But we had to weigh their overall importance carefully, since they can add to a seat’s cost and are still less vital to a baby’s safety than a proper install.

Another issue we faced as we were finalizing our short list of infant seats was trying to sort through the often-confounding differences among the models and model names, many of which sound like they’ve been chosen for journeys into space. (Think we’re exaggerating? Our top pick, the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX , has a whole host of cousins, including the SnugRide SnugFit 35 , the SnugRide SnugFit 35 LX , the SnugRide SnugFit 35 Elite , the Premier SnugRide SnugFit 35 XT , and the Premier SnugRide SnugFit 35 XT featuring Load Leg Technology .)  Many major car seat manufacturers sell multiple versions of similar infant car seats but with slight variations to the features that typically affect the name and price. For example, a manufacturer may make two seats that are nearly identical, except they have different infant height and weight limits. Or a manufacturer may offer a “base model” of a seat as well as different iterations of it, all with their own names and corresponding prices; each of these versions may have upgrades, such as a handle that you can adjust with one hand (versus the standard handle, which requires two hands), more recline positions for the base, or a no-rethread harness (which lets you adjust the strap height without taking the straps out and threading them back through).

After extended discussions with experts, we concluded that most of those optional upgrade features are generally not necessary (though in some cases they’re nice to have) and often not worth the added expense. When it came time to decide which infant seat models we would be field-testing—and whether we would be opting for any upgrades—we evaluated the features on a case-by-case basis to determine whether we thought they would be worth an extra cost. We also took availability into account: Sometimes the model with a few upgrades was easier to find through national brick-and-mortar retail chains, and the base model was available only online; in this case we opted for the model with wider availability. But this is not a perfect science, so we encourage any car seat shopper to use their own judgment to determine which seat model has the combination of features that works for them.

Our 20 total hours of background research led us to conclude that the ideal infant car seat should have the following attributes:

• Be simple to install: Since proper installation is so intrinsic to a car seat’s safety—and since NHTSA data (PDF) shows that many car seats are installed incorrectly —we prioritize ease of install. We look for seats that a diligent adult who is following instructions can install correctly within a few minutes, without expert assistance. (Harried caregivers who’ve had to install a car seat in a relative’s car or in a rental know that an intuitive installation system trumps a well-crafted set of instructions. Even so, we definitely consider excellent instructions to be a bonus.) We also want seats that are manageable to install multiple ways, namely by using the base with LATCH (clipping the base to the car’s built-in anchors, forgoing the lap belt), using the base with the car’s seat belt, or installing just the seat itself without the base. (All of those methods are considered equally safe , as long as the fit is secure. But you should never use multiple install methods simultaneously, unless instructed otherwise.) Regardless of the install method, the goal is the same: If you grab the seat or the base near the attachment point and pull back and forth, it should move less than an inch in any direction.
• Be as safe as possible: Whenever possible, we consider NHTSA crash-testing reports and ease-of-use data (see above for details). And though added safety features—such as a load leg or an anti-rebound base—are not essential, we consider them to be a plus, particularly if they are offered on a standard seat model at no additional cost. (In some cases, a car seat manufacturer makes the same seat with and without an added safety feature; we’ve noted if that’s an option, where applicable.)
• Be easy to carry: An infant seat should be manageable to carry. If it already feels too heavy before you’ve even loaded in the passenger, it’s failing one of its key purposes. The seat’s handle should be easy to grasp and to adjust between positions.
• Be user-friendly: Life with a newborn can be intense—an infant car seat should not be a source of frustration. The harness straps on the seat should buckle and adjust without any resistance or hassle. The bucket should click in and out of the base smoothly. The seat should be compatible with a variety of popular strollers (with or without the addition of an adapter). The seat’s fabric cover should be easy to keep clean. And finally, we appreciate thoughtful touches that save time or effort (even though they aren’t necessities), such as a no-rethread harness or an especially well-designed LATCH system.
• Have a reasonably high height and weight limit: You don’t want your child to outgrow their infant seat before you’re ready and willing to switch over to a convertible seat. We look for seats that can accommodate babies of average to above-average size for over a year or more.
• Be accessible: We focus on seats that are readily available—ideally in a choice of colors or designs—and that can be found at a variety of major retailers. Although we do consider models in a wide price range—and we recommend one high-end seat, the Clek Liing, as our upgrade pick—we give extra credit to seats that provide an especially good value.

Based on the criteria above, we narrowed our list of contenders to 12 infant car seats to test (or in some cases retest) in 2022.

When we wrote the first version of this infant seat guide, stroller compatibility (the ability to click an infant seat into a stroller base, with or without the help of an added adapter) was one of the main criteria we considered. This time around, we haven’t highlighted stroller compatibility as much. That’s not because we don’t think it’s important—many caregivers appreciate the convenience it affords, and we’ve included a list of the major stroller brands whose models are compatible with each of our car seat picks. However, stroller compatibility is now pretty common: With some notable exceptions, you can match up most popular infant seats with a wide range of popular strollers. Therefore, we do not consider this to be a feature that truly sets an infant seat apart or one that deserves the same weight as the other criteria listed above.

We also caution car seat shoppers against getting talked into infant seat and stroller “systems” where compatibility is the main selling point, since the payoff is bound to be short-lived. The time period in which most families actually use an infant seat and a stroller together is relatively brief—usually around a year or so—whereas a stroller is likely to be around a lot longer. So we believe it makes sense to choose the best infant seat and the best stroller individually, each on its own merits, rather than settling for a subpar version of either.

Some infant seats—including three of our picks in this guide—come with an anti-rebound base or a load leg, added safety features that can improve the seat’s performance and stability in a crash. (The Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX , our top pick, and the Chicco KeyFit 35 , our also-great pick, have an anti-rebound base; the Clek Liing , our upgrade pick, has a load leg.) Both features have been popular on infant seat models sold in Canada and abroad for years, but they have only recently become more common in the United States.

An anti-rebound base, also known as an anti-rebound bar, is a metal bar built into the foot end of the seat base, which rests flush against the vehicle seat; it’s designed to help decrease the car seat’s movement. In a front-impact collision, an infant seat moves forward and down and then “rebounds” back, potentially sending its passenger face-first into the back of the vehicle seat. The anti-rebound base can minimize that rebound effect.

A load leg is a metal pole that connects from the base of the infant seat to the floor of the car, making the seat more stable and absorbing some of the impact of a crash. Load legs can be installed in most—but not all—cars. So before you buy a seat with a load leg, you should confirm that your car’s make and model can accommodate one. And you should find out if there’s a particular position in the back where you must install it.

Both anti-rebound bases and load legs have the potential to improve the performance of an infant car seat. Of the two features, a load leg may be more effective, since the load leg serves the dual function of reducing movement and absorbing some of the initial impact of the crash without transferring it to the child.

Consumer Reports, in its independent crash testing of infant car seats , concluded that the risk of a head injury was about 46% less with the use of a load leg. (CR also noted, however, that a load leg isn’t required to achieve the best-possible crash-testing results; some of the seats it tested that didn’t have a load leg still achieved those results.) Another example: Clek put its Liing infant seat through crash testing with and without the load leg, as documented in this video . Clek found that using the load leg could reduce the potential for injury by up to 40% compared with using the same seat without the load leg.

Although support for using load legs and anti-rebound bases is growing—as is buyer demand—there’s still a long way to go before these components can be required as standard safety features. For one thing, the crash tests that the NHTSA performs do not currently allow for the use of load legs, so the safety advantage that load legs may provide is not reflected in current government data. Miriam Manary , lead research engineer at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute , pointed out this strange disconnect: “The US does not regulate or encourage the use of load legs, [but they do] have a safety benefit, for sure.”

For the initial wave of testing in 2022, I subjected the eight infant car seat finalists to a series of at-home tests that mimicked the real-world infant car seat experience. For each seat, I read and analyzed the instructions. Then I practiced installing each seat (in a 2016 Honda Odyssey minivan) three different ways: with the base using LATCH, with the base using the vehicle seat belt, and without the base using the seat belt only. I adjusted the harness straps, played around with the sun canopy and handle, repeatedly clicked the seat in and out of its base, and carried the seat around by the handle for about 25 feet (from the garage to inside the house).

I also spent six hours comparing our top infant car seats with Gina Duchossois —an injury-prevention expert with the Injury Prevention Program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), as well as the chair of Safe Kids Southeastern Pennsylvania and a certified Child Passenger Safety Technician (CPST)—and with Wirecutter senior editor Courtney Schley, who has four kids (the youngest had recently aged out of his infant seat). Courtney and I took turns installing the seats in our own cars parked in Gina’s driveway on a freezing-cold winter day, and then Gina evaluated our installs. (Again, we performed all of the installs three ways—with the base using LATCH, with the base using a seat belt, and without the base using a seat belt.) Together, the three of us discussed the merits and drawbacks of each seat; Gina also offered her expert feedback and installation tips.

Later in 2022, we tested four additional seats, putting them through the same paces as the previous batch. Courtney and Gina did not participate in that round of testing.

For the first version of this guide, published in 2018, we elected to perform independent crash testing on the infant car seats that we considered as our top contenders. We commissioned MGA Research, a lab in Burlington, Wisconsin, to conduct the tests, and we factored the results into our final recommendations.

When we began working on the newest update to this guide, in late 2021, we were open to pursuing independent crash testing once again. We were eager to take a thorough and comprehensive approach to inform and improve our decision-making. To help us better understand the latest crash-testing protocols, we reached out to three industry experts: Alisa Baer , a pediatrician, CPST, and co-founder of the website The Car Seat Lady ; Matt Maltese , an engineer and crash-testing expert who has worked for both NHTSA and CHOP ; and Jessica Jermakian , VP of vehicle research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety ( IIHS ), a nonprofit organization dedicated to automotive safety.

Much to our surprise, the more we learned about independent crash testing, the less certain we became that it made sense in our particular circumstances. (To be clear, this in no way diminishes our faith in the mandatory, regulated crash testing that the government requires of all car seat manufacturers ; this is essential to maintaining high safety standards and accountability.) Our conclusion: Although we could certainly conduct a series of crash tests that would generate plenty of data, that data would likely not be meaningful or serve its intended purpose—that is, to provide us with information that would help us zero in on the best options among a small group of high-quality seats.

Our plan had been to crash test the four to six infant seats that had already performed the strongest in our field testing, based on the criteria laid out in How we picked . But as advanced as today’s crash-testing tools are, we learned that they still aren’t advanced enough to help reviewers reliably differentiate among a number of well-engineered seats or to tease out an A+ from an A-. In a nutshell, crash testing can be extremely useful for determining good versus bad. But it is less helpful for determining really good from really, really good. Jermakian said, “I’m not sure that crash testing would give you meaningful results. If you’ve already picked the four best seats from all the other perspectives, then you can feel confident that engineers have spent a lot of time designing those seats for a good and safe user experience.”

Here are some of our key takeaways in this regard:

• Crash testing is an imperfect science. It’s difficult to simulate in a lab the real environment of a car and the real circumstances of a crash. Also, dummies aren’t all that sophisticated or lifelike. (In dummies’ defense, their name doesn’t imply otherwise.) “Humans are very complex,” Jermakian said. “Dummies are not so sophisticated that they act exactly as a real human would in a crash, or give us the level of confidence needed to differentiate between similar results.”
• Numerical results don’t tell the whole story. After a crash test, seats are assigned injury measure scores, ratings that predict the likelihood of injury. And it would be logical to conclude that if one seat gets a better score than another, it’s clearly the safer seat. But unfortunately, it’s not that simple; those scores come with some complex caveats and asterisks, which raise questions about how accurately they translate to differences in real-world injury risk. “Everybody wants the easy, intuitive answer—one number is bigger and one is smaller—but it’s so much more nuanced than that,” Jermakian said.
• Crash-testing results tend to vary. Crash testing tends to involve some level of test-to-test (and lab-to-lab) variability. Testers can run the identical scenario multiple times and come away with different injury measure scores each time. Without repeating the tests on each seat multiple times (a process that can cost thousands of dollars, plus the cost of providing for each setup a brand-new seat that’s disposed of afterward), we would have to assume that minor differences in scores could be random rather than meaningful.

After careful consideration and consultation with experts, we decided that field testing alone, without crash testing, should dictate our picks in this guide. If anything, our research has confirmed that caregivers can take comfort in knowing that most car seats do their job very well. “Five-point harness child restraint seats are highly effective in reducing the chances of injury and death,” Maltese said. So the most effective strategy for keeping your kids safe on the road is to choose a car seat that works well for your family, and for you to use it correctly. “The best car seat is the one that fits your kid, fits your car, and is used properly on every trip,” Maltese said.

The Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is a shockingly good value. We’d willingly pay a lot more for this infant car seat, but we’re glad we don’t have to. This seat is easy to install, convenient to carry, and reasonably attractive. It’s loaded with little extras that make it more pleasant to operate, and it has generous height and weight limits. The SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX also comes with a welcome (if not essential) added safety feature: an anti-rebound base. Yet it still costs less than many other infant seats, including most of our other picks.

Installing the base of the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is intuitive, with guides and instructions incorporated into the base itself. One such guide is a liquid-filled bubble level indicator (like a carpenter’s level), which shows you how much to adjust the foot of the base once it’s on your car seat. To make that adjustment, you squeeze the lever located at the front of the seat, after which you shift the base into the recline position (it offers five options) that’s right for the angle of your vehicle’s seat and your child’s age.

Then you attach the included straps via LATCH ( see this video for a demonstration) to the vehicle’s anchors and close the lock-off (a lever that ratchets down the strap to remove the extra slack). Or, if you prefer to rely on your car’s seat belt ( see this video for a demonstration) instead of the LATCH system, you thread the seat belt through the belt path, buckle it in, and close the lock-off. (Graco calls this lock-off mechanism the SnugLock, and we found that it works as advertised.) To uninstall the base, you lift the lock-off and either push the red buttons on the LATCH clips to release them or unbuckle the seat belt.

Graco claims that it’s possible to do the base install, with either LATCH or the seat belt, in less than a minute. In our experience, that wasn’t far off; the first time I tried it myself, the process took about two minutes. By the time I’d gotten the hang of it, a minute was plenty of time. The instructions in the manual are detailed and clear, but as mentioned, the markers and guides on the seat itself are a big help, too.

Once you have installed the base and clicked in the bucket seat, the setup feels satisfyingly secure. Regardless of which install method you use for an infant seat, the goal is the same: If you grab the seat or the base near the attachment point and pull back and forth, the seat should move less than an inch in any direction. (All of the installation methods are considered equally safe , provided that the fit is secure, so use whichever one works best for your vehicle and seat. But unless otherwise directed, never use multiple methods at the same time, because the seats weren’t designed for that.)

The SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX’s secure fit is due in part to the anchoring effect of the anti-rebound bar at the foot of the base, which rests flush against the vehicle’s seat back. The anti-rebound base is an extra built-in safety feature that helps to reduce the secondary motion caused by a front-impact crash. After the impact of a crash, a car seat can surge forward in the car and then rebound back, potentially sending a baby face-first into the vehicle seat back; the anti-rebound bar can limit that rebound effect. (For more information, see Understanding optional safety features .) Regardless of whether you consider this feature to be important, it’s pretty uncommon on a seat that costs around $200.

We were not nearly as successful in installing this seat without the base—that is, using just the bucket portion of the seat and the car’s seat belt. Like the Chicco KeyFit 30 , our runner-up pick, the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX uses an American belt-path configuration, which requires the seat belt to be routed through guides across the top front of the bucket, above the baby’s legs. This configuration makes it hard to get a super-secure install because it’s tough to push down on the seat with one hand and remove slack from the belt with the other—and the belt tends to slide through the guides if there’s any slack. The end result is that the seat feels a bit loose and wiggly.

By contrast, infant seats that use a European belt path—such as our upgrade pick, the Clek Liing , and our also-great pick, the Chicco KeyFit 35 —route the shoulder belt around the back of the seat and the lap belt across the top of the seat; this arrangement makes the infant seat nestle in tighter and more securely (as demonstrated in this video from The Car Seat Lady). To address the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX’s wiggliness in this type of install, CPST Gina Duchossois recommends wedging a rolled-up towel or a shortened pool noodle into the gap between the infant seat and the vehicle seat to make the fit more snug.

Once you’ve installed the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX, it’s easy to use. Many infant car seats require you to use two hands to adjust the handle position. But the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX has a button conveniently located at the top of the handle—you just press it and then move the handle using one hand. Releasing the bucket from the base is also a one-handed maneuver, as you simply lift up a handle at the back of the seat.

Securing and releasing the chest clip on the harness is easy; not much hand strength is required. The SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is one of the few infant seats we’ve tested that has a no-rethread harness: As your baby grows and needs the headrest and harness straps set to different heights, all you have to do is push the Adjust button on the headrest and pull up to move the straps. (With most car seats, every time you make an adjustment, you have to undo the harness straps and rethread them through the slots in the back of the seat; this task is not particularly onerous, but one more thing is one more thing.)

The SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is attractive, and it comes in several appealing color combinations. The seat cover is made of a polyester fabric; to the touch, it feels slightly coarse, a little like a wet suit. You can spot-clean it or take it off and machine-wash it on the gentle cycle and air-dry it. The SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX also features what Graco calls a “rapid remove” seat pad, which means you don’t have to take apart and unthread the harness in order to remove the cover for washing. The portion of the cover that’s most likely to be a casualty of a classic up-the-back-of-the-diaper blowout is actually a separate piece that you can unsnap, wash, and put back on without taking off the rest of the cover. (That piece covers the back area as well as the headrest, so it may also be beneficial for catching sideways spit-up.) A Wirecutter staffer who tested the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX for 10-plus months confirmed how well the seat has held up, noting that the fabric cover wipes clean and is easily removed for washing.

The SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX has a noticeably thicker headrest than many models we’ve come across. In addition, the sun canopy provides decent coverage; if necessary, you can detach it in the back, so your baby can be shaded at the front if the sun is shining in. According to Graco, the canopy is designed to be adjusted quietly, so as not to disturb a sleeping baby. In our tests, we moved the canopy around, and nothing struck us as particularly different about it. We didn’t have a dozing infant to test it out on, and truth be told, in the past we’ve never noticed a canopy being loud enough to ruin a nap. But in theory, sure, quieter is always better.

Measuring 29 inches long from front to back, the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is the longest of the seats we recommend, but only by about an inch, so it should have no trouble fitting in a compact car. And this seat is approximately 17½ inches wide, making it the widest of the seats we recommend (but only by a little over half an inch). Depending on the vehicle type and the other car seats in the mix, it may be possible to fit three car seats across in a row. Without the base, this seat weighs about 10½ pounds—the heaviest of all our picks, and a pound and a half more than our upgrade pick, the Clek Liing, which is the lightest model in our lineup. We didn’t find that extra weight to be particularly noticeable, but because babies get heavier over time, it can definitely be an advantage to start with a lighter seat.

Since the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is designed to accommodate babies as small as 4 pounds, it’s an option for some preemie infants. (The seat also comes with an installed newborn insert, an additional support cushion that helps provide a better harness fit for smaller babies, up to 12 pounds.) The maximum size limit of the seat is 35 pounds or 32 inches long, the high end of the infant seat range; we suspect you’ll tire of carrying your baby around in this seat before your baby actually outgrows it. Because the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX was relatively new to Graco’s lineup at the time of our testing, crash-testing data from NHTSA was not yet available. (The report (PDF) has since been released, and the seat performed well.) It got five stars (the highest score) from NHTSA’s ease-of-use rating. This seat has a lifespan of seven years before it expires, and it comes with a limited one-year warranty that covers defects but not misuse or damage caused by normal wear and tear.

Graco offers a number of models that are similar to the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX, including the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 , Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 LX , Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 Elite , Graco Premier SnugRide SnugFit 35 XT , and Graco Premier SnugRide SnugFit 35 XT featuring Load Leg Technology . We opted to test the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX because it’s the company’s best-selling model, according to a Graco spokesperson. It’s also among the most widely available—I found that it’s the one carried at my local Target. But all of these Graco models offer the same easy install, so choosing comes down to prioritizing which features matter most to your family and deciding how much you want to spend. The SnugRide SnugFit 35, for example, has a four-position base, versus the five positions of our pick, the DLX; more base positions may allow the base to fit more easily into a wider range of vehicles. The handle on the SnugRide SnugFit 35 requires two hands to operate, and that model has less head padding than on our pick. We wouldn’t consider any of those things to be dealbreakers, so if you’re looking to save about $60, the SnugRide SnugFit 35 is a good alternative to our pick. The SnugRide SnugFit 35 LX, meanwhile, provides the one-handed adjustable handle and the five-position base but has less head and body padding than our pick, the DLX. However, the LX usually costs around $30 less than the DLX, so it’s another strong option. For around $40 more than our pick, the SnugRide SnugFit 35 Elite has the same padding, plus fancier-looking fabric and a removable all-weather boot (aka partial cover). The Premier SnugRide SnugFit 35 XT provides all of the features of the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX, as well as a see-through peek-a-boo window in the extendable sun canopy and fancier fabric, for around $100 more. Finally, the Graco Premier SnugRide SnugFit 35 XT featuring Load Leg Technology has the same features as the XT plus a load leg, which may give added safety and stability in a crash. We plan to test this load-leg model.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Our biggest complaint about the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is that installing it tightly and securely is difficult if you aren’t using the base. This problem isn’t unique to this seat—we encountered the same issue with our runner-up pick, the Chicco KeyFit 30, which also employs the American belt-path configuration.

If you’re planning to use the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX mostly with its base, this shouldn’t be a big deal. But families that regularly rely on taxis, or that plan to travel frequently and leave the base at home, may be better served by a seat with a European belt path (such as our upgrade pick, the Clek Liing , or also-great pick, the Chicco KeyFit 35 ); this allows for a tighter no-base install.

Also, the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is not compatible with as many strollers from various brands as our other picks, including strollers from the popular Uppababy line. If you have your heart set on using an Uppababy stroller with your infant seat, you may be better served by our runner-up pick (Chicco KeyFit 30), upgrade pick (Clek Liing), or also-great pick (Chicco KeyFit 35), all of which are compatible with Uppababy strollers.

The Chicco KeyFit 30 infant car seat is one of the easiest to use and install, especially if you’re using the LATCH method. The first version of this seat debuted in 2006, and Chicco (pronounced “KEY-co”) has made very few changes to the core design since then; this is a model that caregivers and friends recommend and pass along to each other. The KeyFit 30 was previously our top pick in this guide, and Wirecutter staffers who’ve now used the seat for many years, over multiple babies, continue to vouch for its quality.

The KeyFit 30 comes with clear instructions in a detailed booklet, as well as supplemental instructions and illustrations printed on the seat, and you’ll find a convenient little drawer within the seat for stowing away the manual between uses. In our tests, this was one of the easiest infant seats to install with the base and LATCH method; thanks to a liquid-filled bubble level indicator on either side of the base, you have a straightforward, intuitive gauge for achieving a proper seat angle. (Although there is no ease-of-use rating for this seat, the NHTSA gave the Chicco KeyFit 30 Magic—a discontinued seat that had the same base as the KeyFit 30—four out of five stars.)

To secure the base using LATCH ( see this video for a demonstration), you click the push-button LATCH hooks into the car’s anchors. And then to tighten, you pull up on a single strap located at the center of the base (labeled with the words “Pull Strap Storage”). Getting a tight fit with this Chicco seat took relatively little strength in our tests, though it did require us to use a bit more force than with our top-pick seat from Graco or our upgrade pick from Clek. That’s because with the KeyFit 30, you have to push down on the base while pulling up on the LATCH pull strap; with the Graco seat, the lock-off arm does the work of making the straps tight; with the Clek seat, you merely push in. The first time I tried to install the KeyFit 30, the process took about three minutes; after that, it took about one minute. To uninstall the base, you lift the button labeled “Lift to Release” to extend the LATCH straps, and then you press the red buttons on the LATCH hooks to remove them.

Installing the KeyFit 30’s base with the seat belt ( see this video for a demonstration) is not complicated, either, but it does require more force. First you route the seat belt through the openings in the base, and then you push on the base and pull the seat belt tight; while maintaining pressure on the base, you route the shoulder belt through the lock-off on the side of the base. During our installation session with CPST Gina Duchossois, she encouraged me to climb on top of the KeyFit 30’s base so that I could apply enough pressure to tighten the belt—I wasn’t quite strong enough to do the job with my arms alone. (As we previously mentioned, you can know whether you’ve installed a seat or base tightly enough by grabbing it near the attachment point and pulling back and forth; it should move less than an inch in any direction.)

The bottom line: Installing the KeyFit 30’s base with LATCH is way easier. So if you’re able to use that method with this seat, you should do so. But if your vehicle is older than 2003 (before the introduction of LATCH), or if you’re installing the infant seat in a position in the car that doesn’t have LATCH (such as the center of a bench seat or in a third row), and the required strength is a concern, you may want to consider other options that have an easier seat-belt-and-base install.

Our attempts to install the KeyFit 30 without its base were not particularly successful—but that problem is not unique to this seat. Like our top pick from Graco, this Chicco seat has an American belt path, which routes the seat belt across the top front of the bucket, above the baby’s legs. And, as with the Graco seat, that makes installing the seat snugly particularly challenging. (For this install method, CPST Gina Duchossois recommends using a rolled-up towel or shortened pool noodle to help fill in the gap between the infant seat and the car’s seat.) A Wirecutter staffer who used the KeyFit 30 with her baby for around 15 months struggled with no-base installs. “I can confirm that installing it without the base is tricky—and it was especially tricky in cars with slippery leather seats,” she said. “You really have to get the car seat at the right angle, tilted pretty far back, or it just slips out from under the seat belt.”

We found the KeyFit 30 to be user-friendly overall. The handle is easy to adjust between positions, though unlike the handle on our top pick, the Graco seat, it does not allow adjustments with one hand. The harness is simple to tighten and to loosen, with a strap mechanism located at the foot of the seat bucket. To adjust the height of the harness straps as your baby grows, you must remove the belts from a plate on the back, pull them through the holes in the seat, and thread them back through at the desired height, since this seat doesn’t have a handy no-rethread harness like the Graco seat and Chicco’s KeyFit 35 do. “Not that you have to do it that many times, but inevitably it was the kind of thing I remembered to do just as we were trying to get on the road, when it was not convenient to take the whole thing out,” noted the Wirecutter staffer. “Now that I have a [convertible] seat with a no-rethread feature, I'm sold!”

The KeyFit 30 is one of the easiest infant seats to click in and out of its base; to remove it, you just lift the orange handle on the back of the seat. (As with our picks from Graco and Clek, on this Chicco seat, you can do this task using one hand.) The chest clip on the harness is simple to open, and with “PUSH” etched into the plastic, it’s been rendered sleep-deprived-parent-proof.

Aesthetically, the KeyFit 30 is pretty unremarkable. It’s not particularly stylish—from a looks standpoint, we prefer both the Graco seat and the Clek seat. But it’s not offensive, either. The KeyFit 30 comes in a range of muted color combinations. The seat cover is made from a slippery-feeling polyester material that’s easy to spot-clean; you can also remove it and machine-wash it on the gentle cycle and air-dry it, if necessary. Unlike with the Graco seat, with this Chicco seat you have to take apart the harness system to remove the cover for washing, which does make the process a bit more time-consuming. In 2022, Chicco released the Chicco KeyFit 30 ClearTex , which is the same seat, available at around the same price, as the KeyFit 30. But the seat cover on the ClearTex version is made with fabric that contains no added chemicals, and it has received a Greenguard Gold Certification for lower chemical emissions. A spokesperson for Chicco confirmed that both models will continue to be sold, so this is simply a matter of preference.

The KeyFit 30 has an average sun canopy; it’s smaller than the canopies on our other picks, but it’s fine. Like the one on the Graco seat, it allows you to detach it from the back of the seat and shift it forward to block the sun from coming in at the front.

The KeyFit 30 is the narrowest and shortest of the seats we recommend, at 16½ inches wide and 27½ inches front to back; like our other picks, it’s a good candidate for a three-across seat configuration. At 9½ pounds, it’s the second-lightest infant seat among our picks, after the Clek Liing.

This seat works for babies ranging from 4 pounds up to 30 pounds or 30 inches; like our other picks, it can accommodate most preemies who are able to travel in a car seat. (It comes with a two-part newborn insert cushion, which provides additional head and body support for babies weighing 4 to 11 pounds.) The KeyFit 30 lasts six years before it expires (the shortest lifespan of our picks, aside from that of the Chicco KeyFit 35, which is also six years), and it comes with a one-year warranty. This seat performed well in NHTSA crash testing (PDF) .

Like our top-pick seat from Graco, the Chicco KeyFit 30 is tricky to install tightly without its base, since it uses an American belt-path configuration. We wish that weren’t the case, and if no-base installs are a priority for your family, the KeyFit 30 probably isn’t your ideal seat. (Our also-great pick, the Chicco KeyFit 35 , is very similar, except it has a European belt path that allows for more secure no-base installs.) Also, although installing the KeyFit 30 with the base using the seat belt (rather than the LATCH method) is not difficult or complicated, it does require some force.

The KeyFit 30 has the lowest child height and weight limit of our picks (respectively, 5 pounds and 2 inches less than the limits of the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX, the Chicco KeyFit 35, or the Clek Liing). That is unlikely to be an issue, but it is something to keep in mind, especially if you have an unusually tall baby. The car seat technicians we interviewed confirmed that a child is likely to reach an infant seat’s height limit before they reach the weight limit. Still, many parents choose to switch over to a convertible car seat well before a child reaches either of those limits, simply because it’s no longer comfortable or easy to carry a bigger baby around in a bucket seat.

Though this is not necessarily a flaw, note that the KeyFit 30 is a bit no-frills. It lacks some of the bells and whistles that we’d put into the “nice but not necessary” category, such as a no-rethread harness or an added safety feature like an anti-rebound base or a load leg. These features can be a bonus, but they are ultimately not required for a quality infant car seat.

This seat is compatible with strollers from many brands.

Another consideration: If you anticipate more babies in your future and you’d like to reuse your infant seat for the next round or more, keep in mind that the KeyFit 30 expires after six years, so it has a shorter lifespan than our top pick from Graco (seven years) or our upgrade pick from Clek (nine years).

In several ways, the Chicco KeyFit 35 is an even better infant car seat than its close relative, the Chicco KeyFit 30, our runner-up pick. Like the KeyFit 30, the KeyFit 35 is notably easy to install and use. But the KeyFit 35 has the added safety feature of an anti-rebound base, a European belt path (especially important for families that use their seat frequently without the base), and a convenient no-rethread harness. This seat is half a pound heavier than the KeyFit 30, though, and it’s typically a bit more expensive.

Installing the KeyFit 35 with its base is very similar to installing the KeyFit 30. As with the KeyFit 30, the task is easier when you’re using the LATCH method, and it requires a little more force when you’re using the vehicle seat belt. The KeyFit 35 does have a different base than the KeyFit 30, since it (like our top-pick seat from Graco) is equipped with an anti-rebound base (an added safety feature), though that doesn’t affect the installation process. (Also, the recline-angle adjuster is situated on the top of the base, rather than at the two sides—as on the KeyFit 30—a location that’s a bit easier to access.) The curved, elongated metal front of the base rests flush against the back of the vehicle seat and is intended to reduce secondary (or rebound) motion in the case of an accident. (For more information, see the Understanding optional safety features section.)

Another distinguishing feature of the KeyFit 35 is that, like our upgrade pick, the Clek Liing, it has a European belt path. The belt path comes into play when you’re installing the seat without its base and using the vehicle seat belt only—usually for taxi rides or other travel situations where you aren’t lugging the base around with you. Most infant car seats sold in the US use an American belt path, which routes the seat belt over the top of the seat only; in our tests, we’ve found it nearly impossible to install a seat securely with an American belt path.

A European belt path, on the other hand, routes the lap belt over the top of the seat and the shoulder belt around the back of the seat, reducing the amount that the seat can wiggle and slide. (CPST Alisa Baer demonstrates the proper installation technique in this video .) This approach still isn’t as snug and satisfying as installing an infant seat with a base, but there’s a vast difference between a seat installed with an American belt path and one installed with a European belt path. So if riding without the base is a frequent occurrence, the type of belt path your infant seat has should be a consideration—and the KeyFit 35 offers this rare feature for hundreds of dollars less than our upgrade pick, the Clek Liing.

Many of the KeyFit 35’s other core features are the same as on the KeyFit 30, including the carrying handle. But one noteworthy upgrade is the KeyFit 35’s no-rethread harness: As your baby grows, you don’t have to take the harness straps off the splitter plate, manually thread the harness straps through the holes in the back of the seat, and then reconnect them. Instead, you just slide the harness up or down into the correct position (the headrest adjusts automatically along with it), and you’re done. Although rethreading harness straps isn’t the end of the world, this design touch is a thoughtful and time-saving feature that we especially appreciate on our top-pick seat from Graco, as well.

Although the KeyFit 35 and KeyFit 30 have no dramatic aesthetic differences, the KeyFit 35 does have a perceptibly sleeker and more high-end feel. The KeyFit 35 has its own range of fabric options, different from the KeyFit 30’s. There are several choices, all variations on black, navy and gray, as well as the Chicco KeyFit 35 ClearTex (this is the same seat, usually at the same price, but its seat cover fabric has no added chemicals and has received a Greenguard Gold Certification for lower chemical emissions). Spot-cleaning the KeyFit 35 is fairly easy, and the cover also tolerates being removed and machine-washed and line-dried.

The sun canopy on the KeyFit 35 extends out a bit farther than the KeyFit 30’s, but it’s not as large as that of our upgrade pick, the Clek Liing. If you want a more generous sun canopy, the KeyFit 35 Zip ClearTex (which is the exact test model we tried for this guide, and the one pictured) has a canopy that can unzip to shade the seat completely; it costs about $30 more. The KeyFit 35 Zip ClearTex’s seat (in the ClearTex fabric) also has a quick-remove seat pad that allows you to remove the top portion of the seat cover for easier washing; several parents on the Wirecutter staff singled this out as a feature they wish their infant car seat had. If you’re comfortable paying more, it’s certainly a nice plus, but we think most people would be content with the standard KeyFit 35 model, as well.

Like the KeyFit 30, the KeyFit 35 is 16½ inches wide, so it’s a good candidate for a three-across car seat configuration. At 28 inches long, the KeyFit 35 is half an inch longer than the KeyFit 30, and at 10 pounds, it weighs a half-pound more. (But it’s still half a pound lighter than our top-pick seat from Graco.)

The KeyFit 35 has a slightly higher passenger height and weight limit than the KeyFit 30, though the minimum weight is the same (4 pounds, which makes it an option for some preemies). Whereas the KeyFit 30’s maximum limits are 30 pounds and 30 inches, the KeyFit 35’s are 35 pounds and 32 inches. We don’t think that difference alone is worth paying more for; by the time your baby is about that size, the main benefit of an infant seat—its portability—is likely lost anyway, and transitioning to a convertible seat is the next natural step. But the higher size limits could get you a few more months of use from the KeyFit 35 before you need to buy another seat. Like the KeyFit 30, the KeyFit 35 comes with a newborn insert (which you must remove when the baby reaches 11 pounds) and a head-rest cushion (which you can use even after your baby has outgrown the newborn position).

The KeyFit 35 expires after six years and comes with a one-year warranty, the same as the KeyFit 30. No NHTSA crash-testing data is available for this particular seat model.

Many of the things we consider to be flaws of the KeyFit 30, including its American belt path and barebones features, are resolved in the KeyFit 35; the seat even looks a little more stylish. It does weigh half a pound more than the KeyFit 30—10 pounds instead of 9½—but that’s still less than our 10½-pound top pick from Graco. It costs more than the KeyFit 30, but we’ve concluded that what it delivers—in particular, an anti-rebound base and a European belt path—justifies the price.  Also, if you’d like to reuse your seat, note that the KeyFit 35, like the KeyFit 30, expires after six years, so it has a shorter lifespan than our top pick from Graco (seven years) or our upgrade pick from Clek (nine years).

Clek is a Canadian car seat manufacturer best known for its high-end convertible car seats , which have a reputation for weighing a ton and being built like tanks. The company came out with its first infant car seat, the Clek Liing , in 2019, and it has yet to appear on some people’s radar. But during our recent round of testing, we were—at the risk of gushing—blown away by the Liing’s functionality, engineering, safety features, and overall design.

The instruction manual for this seat is detailed, but don’t let the thoroughness intimidate you: Installing the Liing with the base is impressively straightforward. (As one CPST pointed out, it’s so simple that her 5-year-old could do it, with some adult oversight. We don’t doubt that.) Like our other picks, the Liing has additional guides and instructions printed on the seat itself. Those on-seat instructions are the most thorough we’ve seen, and they repeat some of the most essential information from the manual on the part of the seat where it applies. Installing the seat took me a couple of minutes the first time I tried; after that, it took about a minute.

To begin the install, first you pull out the load leg from the bottom of the seat. The load leg is an added safety feature on the Liing; it’s a metal rod that telescopes out and serves as a support beam between the base of the seat and the vehicle floor. If an accident occurs, the load leg can help to absorb some of the initial impact of the crash, and it also limits the amount that the seat can rotate or rebound. You can install the base without the load leg, too, but in Clek’s crash testing of the Liing (video) , the company found that using the load leg could reduce the potential for injury by as much as 40%. (For more information on load legs, see Understanding optional safety features .)

To fasten the Liing’s base to your car with the LATCH system , you extend metal arms built into the base and push them straight into your car’s LATCH anchors. (When you make the connection, the color on the indicator window next to the connectors turns from red to green.) This type of LATCH system is known as rigid LATCH, and it’s our favorite kind because it facilitates the safest and most secure install. (Releasing the base with rigid LATCH is also easy: You just push down and slide back the red LATCH release buttons near the LATCH anchors.) The final install step is to adjust the base into one of seven recline positions; a liquid-filled bubble level indicator shows you which recline setting to choose, according to the baby’s weight. Between the rigid LATCH and the load leg, once you’ve installed the Liing’s base, it doesn’t budge or even wiggle—it feels as if it’s built into the vehicle.

A Wirecutter staffer who has been using the Liing for around five months was less impressed by her first attempt to install the base with LATCH. “It was actually not as easy as I expected,” she said. “The LATCH rods sort of got stuck in their retracted position, and I fought with them for five to 10 minutes.” She did, however, appreciate how clearly and explicitly the instructions were spelled out on the base itself: “[Our past] car seats had no such innovation—with the Liing we could largely rely on the concise, sequenced steps on the base.”

To install the base using the seat-belt method instead, you open the belt tensioner with a lever on the base, feed the seat belt through the bright blue plastic threader on the top edge of the base, pull tight, and then close the belt tensioner. Though this install method still felt very secure in our tests, it wasn’t quite as rock-solid as the LATCH method.

Whether you’re installing the base with the LATCH system or the seat-belt method, color-change indicators let you know when the components have properly locked in (red means not locked; green indicates locked). Additionally, you’ll find a color-change indicator at the foot of the load leg; you lower the load leg with the tab labeled “Pull” until the indicator turns green.

When you’re ready to click the seat bucket into the base, yet another color indicator on the side of the bucket confirms that it’s inserted properly. If it’s not attached securely, the indicator displays red; when the seat is locked in, it turns green. Because of the copious color-coding (the Liing has more such indicators than any other seat we’ve tested), it’s nearly impossible to inadvertently goof anything up along the way.

The Liing is one of the few seats we tested in 2022 with a European belt path—our also-great pick, the Chicco KeyFit 35 , is another—rather than the far more common American belt path. The European belt path routes the vehicle’s seat belt over the infant car seat in two directions: The lap belt goes across the top of the bucket, while the shoulder belt goes around the back. (The American belt path goes over the top only.) As a result, we were able to install the Liing without its base, using the seat belt only, much more securely and easily than our top pick, the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX, and our runner-up pick, the Chicco KeyFit 30, both of which use the American belt path. (Clek provides video instructions for installing the Liing without the base , and CPST Alisa Baer has a video with tips for installing an infant seat with a European belt path.) If you’re planning to use the seat-belt method frequently—say, for travel or taxi rides—note that the two picks in this guide with European belt paths were the only seats that performed well in this type of install during our tests.

Like our picks from Graco and Chicco, the Liing seat allows you to remove it from its base using one hand (though the release lever is located on the base, rather than on the bucket seat itself). For adjustments, the handle requires that you use two hands (unlike on our pick from Graco), but it moves smoothly and is comfortable to hold. As your baby grows, you have to adjust the harness straps the traditional way, by removing them and rethreading them. (A no-rethread harness, like that found on the Graco seat and the Chicco KeyFit 35, is quicker and easier to manage.)

During our comparison testing, we found the buckles on the Liing’s harness simple to clasp and unclasp. But the staffer who has been using this seat for five-plus months reports that she frequently struggles with releasing the crotch buckle. “I wrestle with the button on the harness almost every time I have to get the baby out—it does not give easily,” she said. We were unable to find similar complaints online, but reviews of the Liing are fairly limited in number. We reached out to a spokesperson for Clek. They said this is not a common complaint and that the company uses a standard buckle on the Liing that should not require any special force; the representative offered to send a new harness for the Liing and to look into the issue with the buckle on the old one when the company received it. Once our editor installed the new harness, she did not have any further issues with the crotch buckle; however she never heard from Clek if the first buckle was indeed faulty.

The Liing is a sophisticated-looking seat. It has an upscale, tailored style, and it’s sleeker than many infant seats. This seat is available in three fabric types: a jersey knit that’s a bit less expensive than the other two but harder to spot-clean; a mid-priced stain-, odor-, and moisture-resistant option that’s easy to wipe clean (and Greenguard Gold Certified for lower chemical emissions); and the priciest option, a wool blend. You can remove the entire cover (Clek shows you how in its video manual ), hand-wash it or wash it in a front-loading machine on the gentle cycle, and then air-dry it. Our staff tester disliked that there’s no quick and easy way to remove the seat cover, or just a portion of it, for cleaning, as with our top-pick seat from Graco.

The sun canopy on the Liing is made from a stretchy material that unzips to expand, providing more coverage than the sunshade on any other infant seat we tested. At the rear of the shade is a peek-a-boo flap that opens to a mesh window, so you can check on your baby through the canopy. Note that in 2021, Clek issued a recall on the Liing concerning a canopy stay that could be forcefully broken and introduce a choking hazard. The company has addressed that design flaw, and the seats it sells today use a different, more flexible stay. If you already own a Clek Liing, you can find out whether your particular seat is affected and request a replacement canopy stay (PDF) .

The Liing is narrow and compact—16.9 inches wide and 27.7 inches deep, just a fraction of an inch larger than the Chicco KeyFit 30 and KeyFit 35, the smallest of our picks. So the Liing, like our other picks, is a good candidate for fitting three across. At 9 pounds, the bucket carrier without the base is more than a pound lighter than our top-pick seat from Graco. Again, we didn’t find the weight differences among our four picks to be all that noticeable. But as your baby grows and you reach the limit of what you can comfortably carry, that extra pound might make a difference.

Despite the Liing’s compact front-to-back dimensions, it can hold an infant up to 35 pounds or 32 inches; it also works for infants as small as 4 pounds, so it’s an option for some preemie babies. The Liing comes with removable support padding that you should use for babies who weigh less than 11 pounds. Clek describes this padding as “two-stage” because it comes in two pieces, a headrest and a support cushion. You can use the headrest until the baby outgrows the seat, and you can use the bottom support cushion until their shoulders reach the top harness slot.

Because the Liing lasts for nine years before it expires—two years more than our top-pick seat from Graco and three years more than the Chicco KeyFit 30 or KeyFit 35—it’s the most hand-me-down-worthy of our picks. It also has a three-year warranty, if you register it within 90 days of purchase, or a one-year warranty, if you don’t. (Graco and Chicco each offer a one-year warranty.) NHTSA crash-testing data (PDF) showed that the Liing fell well below the government requirements for head-injury criteria (which is a good thing), even though the NHTSA tests evaluated the Liing’s performance without the load leg, which in theory could have improved its scores further. Clek also publishes its own crash-testing data . The NHTSA gave the Liing four out of five stars for its ease of use.

When you’re paying this much for a seat, it’s easy to start nitpicking and finding slight room for improvement. For example: As your baby grows, you have to adjust the Liing’s harness by removing the straps and rethreading them. The task isn’t tough to do, and the absence of a no-rethread harness keeps this seat lighter, since that feature adds a bit of weight. Still, once you’ve experienced the convenience of a no-rethread harness (as on our top pick from Graco and our also-great pick, the Chicco KeyFit 35), you’re likely to miss it when it’s not there. Ditto for an easy-off seat cover and a handle that you can adjust using one hand.

Finally, we have to address the elephant in the room: Even by upgrade-pick standards, the price of the Liing is pretty eye-watering. This seat costs about twice as much as some of our other, perfectly good picks; as far as we know, the Liing is the most expensive infant seat available. We understand how spending this much on an item that you may own for just a year could be seen as egregious. In the lead-up to publishing this revision to this guide, we had multiple internal conversations about the implications of giving such a glowing recommendation to an infant seat that is inaccessible to so many people, particularly when you consider that this is a product intended to save children’s lives. And, unfortunately, due to the practical safety concerns related to secondhand car seats, we can’t suggest (as we would with a bike or a stroller) that you try to find a used one—unless you are certain of the seat’s history and confident that it has never incurred any damage.

Ultimately, we didn’t think it was fair to eliminate the Liing or ignore its merits purely because of its price. Although we acknowledge that it is cost-prohibitive for many families, we have made an effort to include other excellent options in this guide that suit a wide range of budgets, and we’re confident in all of our picks.

If you want a less expensive version of our top pick from Graco: The Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 —which usually costs about $60 less than our pick —has a four-position base, versus the five positions of our pick . According to Graco, when a seat has more positions to choose from, it’s easier for the base to fit in a wider range of vehicles. Even so, Graco’s instruction manual (PDF) says on page 20 that you can use a rolled towel under the base if further adjustments are necessary. Additionally, the SnugRide SnugFit 35’s handle requires two-handed operation, and this seat has less head padding. The Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 LX offers the same one-handed adjustable handle and five-position base as our top pick but has less head and body padding; it usually costs about $30 less.

If you want an upgrade to our top pick from Graco: The Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 Elite has the same padding as our top pick, plus fancier-looking fabric and a removable all-weather boot (aka partial cover); it usually costs about $40 more. A boot can be a nice feature in certain climates, especially for providing a bit of extra warmth, since a child should not wear a thick, puffy coat under the harness. But a regular blanket tucked over the legs of the buckled-in child should work just as well. The Graco Premier SnugRide SnugFit 35 XT has an extendable sun canopy with a see-through peek-a-boo window; it’s usually about $100 more. Also, the Graco Premier SnugRide SnugFit 35 XT featuring Load Leg Technology has the same features as the Elite XT plus a load leg, which may give added safety and stability in a crash (we plan to test this model).

If you want a less expensive version of our runner-up pick from Chicco, and you don’t mind a lower weight limit: The Chicco KeyFit (sometimes referred to as the KeyFit 22, due to its 22-pound weight limit) has a weight limit that’s 8 pounds less than that of the more popular KeyFit 30, our runner-up pick ; both have the same, 30-inch height limit. Many caregivers are likely to find carrying a 22-pound baby in a 9-pound bucket seat difficult enough to warrant switching to a convertible seat at that point, anyway; others may prefer an infant seat with more longevity, considering that some babies may reach 22 pounds at as young as 6 months. The KeyFit features the same easy-to-install base as the KeyFit 30, but the bucket seat itself weighs half a pound less. The NHTSA has given this seat four out of five stars for ease of use.

If you want our runner-up Chicco pick but with different fabric options: The Chicco KeyFit 30 ClearTex is the same seat as our runner-up pick, the KeyFit 30, but it is made with ClearTex fabric rather than the standard polyester; the ClearTex fabric has received a Greenguard Gold Certification for lower chemical emissions and is made with no added chemicals. The Chicco KeyFit 30 Zip comes with a quick-remove seat pad for easy cleaning (which multiple Wirecutter staffers have prized highly), a zip-open boot (or partial cover), and a zip-open mesh panel in its sun canopy.

If you want our also-great Chicco pick but with additional upgrades: The Chicco KeyFit 35 Zip ClearTex is the same seat as our also-great pick , the KeyFit 35, with a quick-remove seat cover for easier cleaning (a big draw for some people) and ClearTex fabric; the ClearTex fabric has received a Greenguard Gold Certification for lower chemical emissions and is made with no added chemicals. This seat usually costs around $30 more than the KeyFit 35. Also, the sun canopy on the KeyFit 35 Zip ClearTex can unzip completely and extend to fully shade the seat.

If you love Uppababy models or want a high-end seat with a European belt path: The Uppababy Mesa V2 is an update of the original Mesa ; the changes aren’t dramatic, but they are welcome. If you’re traveling without the base, you’ll appreciate the revamped seat’s European belt path (as on our upgrade pick, the Clek Liing, and our also-great pick, the Chicco KeyFit 35); it allows for a far more secure no-base install than the American belt path, which comes standard on most infant seats. Uppababy has also added more side-impact protection and a larger sun canopy to this version. The Mesa V2, like the first version, has an easy-to-use self-ratcheting system: When you’re installing the base with LATCH, after you’ve attached the LATCH clips, you just push down on the base, and it tightens itself (an indicator turns from red to green once it’s tightened properly). The seat without the base weighs a manageable 9.9 pounds, and fans of Uppababy’s aesthetic will like the high-end look and feel. (And if you have an Uppababy Cruz or Uppababy Vista stroller, the seat clicks right in without an adapter.) But this is an expensive seat, and installing the base with a seat belt rather than LATCH requires a lot of force. Still, since most vehicles have LATCH anchors, that may not be a dealbreaker. The NHTSA has not given an ease-of-use rating for this seat. Uppababy also recently debuted the Mesa Max , which has a load leg and anti-rebound base; we have not tested it.

If you travel frequently or rely heavily on taxis: You might like the Doona , a pricey car-seat-and-stroller combo that’s a pick in our guide to the best travel car seats . Its unique design can be convenient for city dwellers who don’t have their own car or for people who might not have the space for a regular stroller. The price is steep, but NHTSA gave this seat five out of five stars for its ease of use. For most families, a better choice is to have a separate stroller and car seat, since a baby is bound to outgrow the Doona long before they outgrow a standard stroller. But if you’re looking for the most convenient option for when your child is small, the Doona could be it.

Federal and state laws

All US states have child-safety-seat laws that require the use of car seats for kids under a certain age. For infants younger than a year old, that means a rear-facing car seat. Dedicated infant seats—including all the seats we review in this guide—are designed to be used rear-facing only. Convertible car seats are intended to be used rear-facing for younger children and then turned around later to be front-facing. The laws vary by state when it comes to the age and size at which a child can legally move to a front-facing seat; many states now require all children younger than 2 to be in a rear-facing child seat.

It is becoming increasingly common for caregivers to keep their children rear-facing beyond the age of 2 because research indicates that children are safer in rear-facing seats. And policy experts believe that the longer a young child remains rear-facing, the safer they are . The American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (PDF) both recommend that children remain rear-facing for as long as possible, ideally until they reach the rear-facing height or weight limit of their car seat. (Before 2018, the AAP had advised that it was fine to turn a child around at 2 years of age.)

The stringent rules surrounding infant car seats are warranted. Despite the fact that deaths in car crashes have plummeted since the 1970s , motor-vehicle crashes remain a leading cause of injury death for US children. The reduction in car-crash fatalities is partly due to the now-ubiquitous use of child-restraint seats, and both car seats and cars have continued to become safer over the past 15 years. The NHTSA estimates (PDF) that the lives of 11,274 children younger than 5 were saved by the use of car seats or safety belts between 1975 and 2016. The nation’s first child-restraint law was enacted in Tennessee in 1978, and within four years the number of traffic-crash deaths among children under the age of 4 declined by more than 50% in the state. By 1985, all 50 states had passed child-restraint laws. Purchasing the correct car seat for your child’s age and stage and installing it correctly may be one of the most critical choices you make for their well-being.

Requirements for manufacturers

Although individual states are responsible for regulating how car seats are used, any car seat sold in the US must meet federal safety standards set by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. The NHTSA requires that all car seats be subjected to a set of regulated crash-testing protocols to confirm that they meet or exceed established benchmarks.

Current front-impact crash testing relies on three measurements to judge safety performance: HIC (head injury criterion), a composite measure that combines time and acceleration to measure the likelihood of a head injury in a car crash, which must be under 1,000; G-clip (also called the 3 ms chest clip), the chest-acceleration measurement, which should be under 60 g; and maximum seat-back angle (to provide adequate neck support in a crash), which should be less than 70 degrees from vertical. Lower numbers are better: With all three tests, the lower the number, the further the seat is from exceeding NHTSA front-impact injury-criteria limits (PDF) .

Currently, the NHTSA compliance testing has no side-impact standard. However, there has been a push to create side-impact tests for car seats. Many car seat manufacturers voluntarily conduct their own side-impact testing, and a standard is already in place in Europe.

US car seat manufacturers are required to self-certify each model’s safety. To ensure that the manufacturers are practicing due diligence and that their car seats are safe, every year the NHTSA conducts random compliance tests, in which the agency selects a subset of car seats and contracts a private crash-testing facility to run tests that simulate a head-on crash at 30 mph. If a car seat fails the test, a recall is instituted. European authorities rely on different—arguably more stringent—standards, including requiring car seat manufacturers to pass certification standards before putting a model on sale and requiring a side-impact standard in addition to front-impact standards.

The NHTSA also rates car seats within different categories on their ease of use, evaluating them on criteria including how clear the instruction manuals are and how easy it is to correctly install the seats. (It’s no secret that incorrect installations are all too common; the NHTSA estimates that nearly half of all car seats are installed incorrectly.)

Note: Counterfeit car seats—that is, car seats that may look like the real thing but have not actually been crash tested for adherence to safety standards—are becoming more prevalent. (They’re often sold online by third-party overseas retailers.) Upon closer inspection, these seats may have “tells,” such as a three-point harness rather than a five-point harness. Never purchase or use a car seat that doesn’t come with many prominently displayed safety labels, including a yellow warning label that states, “This child restraint system conforms to all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).” For more tips on how to spot a counterfeit seat, review this advice from a CPST.

The Chicco Fit2 is an infant-and-toddler hybrid seat rated for up to 35 pounds or 35 inches (the tallest height limit of all the infant car seats we considered). Intended for kids up to 2 years old, it could be appealing to caregivers who want to delay the switchover to a convertible seat. With the Fit2’s base in its “toddler” position, the seat will properly fit an older child at a more upright angle. The seat also has an extendable headrest and a removable canopy. The base is similar to that of our runner-up pick , the Chicco KeyFit 30, a design that we found easy to install. And, like our top pick from Graco and our also-great pick from Chicco, it has the added feature of an anti-rebound bar on the base, which could help reduce secondary motion in a crash. However, the Fit2’s bucket seat without the base weighs 11 pounds (nearly 2 pounds more than the KeyFit 30 seat), which may limit its use as a portable seat as your baby gets bigger. It’s also about 0.5 inch wider and 1.5 inches longer than the KeyFit 30, so it may not fit as well in smaller vehicles. Although this is one of a handful of seats available with a European belt path—which typically enables a better no-base install—we found that because the seat is longer and wider, a standard seatbelt (as in the Honda Odyssey we used for testing) was not long enough for us to use the European routing. The NHTSA gives the Fit2 four out of five stars for its ease-of-use rating.

The Clek Liingo is a no-base infant car seat. It is similar in look and feel to our upgrade pick , the Clek Liing, but since the Liingo omits a base, it also lacks a load leg, the added safety feature on the Liing. The Liingo is usually around $150 cheaper than the Liing. You can install the Liingo using either the vehicle’s seat belt (it has a European belt-path configuration, which allows for a more secure no-base install than an American belt path) or a pair of LATCH hooks that stow away in a compartment at the back of the seat. The LATCH hooks disappointed us because instead of being a truly integrated component of the seat, they’re merely attached to a separate strap that goes through the top belt path; in our tests, installing the seat with them was not nearly as secure as using the European belt-path method. (And neither method was as secure or satisfying as installing the Liing seat with its base.) However, if you don’t own a car, or if you spend a lot of time in taxis, the Liingo might be worth considering for its portability (it weighs only 9 pounds if you remove the detachable LATCH bin and newborn insert) and its significantly lower price in comparison with the Liing. If you’re choosing between the two for your primary infant seat, however, we believe that the Liing—and its base, which provides a better and more secure install—is worth spending more on. NHTSA gives the Liingo three out of five stars for its ease-of-use rating. In 2021, Clek issued the same recall on the Liingo as it did on the Liing, concerning a canopy stay that could be forcefully broken and introduce a choking hazard. Clek has addressed the flaw, and you can request a replacement canopy stay (PDF) .

The Cybex Aton 2 , which we tested in 2018, was the most difficult of the seats in that test group to click in and out of its base; it required us to place different fingers on two release panels and then push in at the same time. We also found the Aton 2’s handle adjustment (which requires gripping the widest part of the handle) frustrating to maneuver. (We could feel the strain from all those attempted adjustments in our forearms and wrists.) The Aton 2’s standout feature is its steel load leg, an easy-to-install added safety feature that can help to absorb some of the initial impact of a crash and limit the subsequent motion. This seat has no NHTSA ease-of-use rating. In February 2023, Cybex issued a recall of the Aton 2 and Cloud Q (see next entry) car seats made between June 6, 2017 and Nov. 1, 2020 because the adjuster strap used to tighten the harness could fray. If you have one of these models, you can contact Cybex for a remedy kit.

The Cybex Cloud Q is a high-end seat with some compelling features; we tested it in 2018. When you aren’t using it in a car, the seat can recline. (Babies should not sleep for extended periods on anything other than a hard, flat surface.) A sensor on the chest clip monitors the baby for temperature and other safety concerns. And this seat comes with a load leg, the optional added safety feature that can help to absorb some of the initial impact of a crash and limit the subsequent motion. However, because this seat is much larger than average and weighs nearly 14 pounds—around 40% more than our picks—it’s far more cumbersome than an infant seat should be. The NHTSA gave the Cloud Q four out of five stars for its ease of use.

The Nuna infant seat lineup includes the Pipa Rx, Pipa Aire, and Pipa Aire Rx, all of which are easy-to-use, lightweight, and stylish car seats.

Nuna sells its seats with two different base options, both of which come with the added safety feature of a load leg, which can help to absorb some of the initial impact of a crash and reduce the amount that the infant seat moves . The more affordable of the two is called the Pipa-series base (yes, it’s super confusing that the base has the same name as the car seat itself), and it comes standard with the Pipa Aire. We concluded that this base has a serious design flaw: It has rigid LATCH hooks that are designed to rotate for an easier fit, but the part of the base that rests against the vehicle seat back is too short. As a result, when you pull up on the bucket seat to disengage it from the base, that motion can cause the base to rotate up (as the LATCH connectors swivel) and the load leg to ratchet down, which causes the base’s angle to change. In a quiet situation, you might hear this happening and have an opportunity to fix it, but if you have a crying baby on your hands, it could go unnoticed. We’re concerned that the base can shift so easily under routine use, and we worry about how its tendency to swivel might translate to more rebound motion in a crash, since the whole seat could move upward toward the back of the seat. (This is the very effect that anti-rebound bases are meant to minimize.) Based on our experience with the Pipa-series base, we are not comfortable recommending it.

Nuna sells its seats with two different base options. The more affordable of the two is called the Pipa-series base (yes, it’s super confusing that the base has the same name as the car seat itself), and it comes standard with the Pipa, Pipa Lite, and Pipa Lite Lx. We concluded that this base has a serious design flaw: It has rigid LATCH hooks that are designed to rotate for an easier fit, but the part of the base that rests against the vehicle seat back is too short. As a result, when you pull up on the bucket seat to disengage it from the base, that motion can cause the base to rotate up (as the LATCH connectors swivel) and the load leg to ratchet down, which causes the base’s angle to change. In a quiet situation, you might hear this happening and have an opportunity to fix it, but if you have a crying baby on your hands, it could go unnoticed. We’re concerned that the base can shift so easily under routine use, and we worry about how its tendency to swivel might translate to more rebound motion in a crash, since the whole seat could move upward toward the back of the seat. (This is the very effect that anti-rebound bases are meant to minimize.) Based on our experience with the Pipa-series base, we are not comfortable recommending it.

The other base option for the Nuna seats, called the Relx base, is better designed but also more expensive; like the Pipa base, it has a load leg and rotating rigid LATCH hooks. The Relx base comes with the Pipa Rx and the Pipa Aire Rx. The part of the Relx base that rests against the vehicle seat is high enough to keep the base securely in place, so even with the swiveling LATCH hooks, the base doesn’t rotate upward when you remove the bucket seat. (This design should also help keep it more secure in a crash.) If you’re interested in a Nuna infant seat, we suggest considering only models with the Relx base. But if you’re going to be spending close to $400 on a car seat, the Clek Liing, our upgrade pick , is a far better choice. Currently NHTSA offers no ease-of-use ratings for most of the Nuna infant seat models, but the agency did give the Nuna Pipa Lite LX an ease-of-use rating of four out of five stars .

Nuna also added a new travel car seat to its lineup, the Pipa Urbn , but unfortunately you can only buy the car seat with one of their strollers, making the lowest price option $900, with their Trvl stroller (the other options, the Trivv Next stroller and the Mixx Next stroller cost $1,100 or $1,200, respectively, with the Urbn). The Urbn seems like a neat idea—it is baseless and instead uses a rigid LATCH to quickly hook onto a car’s anchors. We haven’t tried it because you can’t buy the seat by itself.

The Peg Perego Primo Viaggio 4-35 is a high-end seat with an anti-rebound base (an added safety feature that can help reduce the rebound effect in the case of a crash) and a no-rethread harness. Aesthetically, it’s highly appealing, with vintage-style stitching. But when we field-tested it in 2018, we found that the chest clip was flimsy, the harness straps were hard to adjust, and the handle was relatively difficult to shift. (The button to adjust the harness straps is tucked beneath the seat’s material. And to operate the handle, you need to apply pressure from the thumbs, not just the hands.) This seat received an ease-of-use rating of four out of five stars from the NHTSA.

No matter which car seat you choose, below we list several ways to ensure that you’re using and caring for it properly:

Check the installation: Nearly 49% of infant car seats are installed or used incorrectly (PDF) , according to NHTSA data. Keep in mind that the seat’s base should be very snug to the vehicle’s seat. The owner’s manual and online videos for your seat can be a helpful resource, but it’s always a good idea to enlist the help of a pro. Many children’s hospitals, fire stations, and police stations have certified staff available to double-check car seat installations—or, in some cases, to do the entire install—at no cost. (This Safe Kids Worldwide page provides information on how and where to get your car seat checked.) For a fee, you can hire a CPST to come to your home and do an installation or training with one or more car seats.

Position the seat for maximum safety: You should always place an infant car seat in your vehicle’s back seat, ideally in the middle position if possible. Safety experts agree that the middle spot (rather than the passenger-side or driver-side “sideboard” seat) is the safest place for a child to travel. “Any car seat installed in the middle in the rear seat is least likely to suffer from the effects of the side impact,” said Dr. Benjamin Hoffman, a pediatrician and CPST instructor who serves as an unpaid consultant to Chicco.

Keep the straps adjusted correctly: You should fasten the harness straps snugly enough on a child that no excess webbing can be pinched . On an infant seat, the chest clip should fall in the vicinity of the baby’s armpits and nipples. And keep in mind that a baby is constantly growing, so the harness height settings that worked on your last trip may not work for the next one.

Follow the cleaning instructions for your seat (and don’t go rogue): The correct method for cleaning a car seat depends on the particular make and model you have—the guidelines related to machine-washing, drying, and appropriate detergent and soap types vary widely from seat to seat. As we explain in our detailed post on how to clean a car seat , it’s important that you follow the instructions carefully, since failing to do so can compromise the safety of the seat or its textiles.

Don’t push the size limit: Your car seat has a height and a weight limit. As soon as your child reaches one or the other, it’s time to get a new seat. Know that tots are likely to reach an infant car seat’s height limit long before they reach the more prominently advertised weight limit. There should be at least an inch of space between the top of your child’s head and the top of the seat back.

Dispose of your seat appropriately: Any seat that has been in a significant accident needs to be retired immediately. Beyond that, seats also have an expiration date, which typically starts six or seven years from the manufacture date. You can usually find the expiration date on a label somewhere on the back of the seat, or you can look up the information online or contact the manufacturer. We’ve written about how to get rid of a used car seat . Some stores periodically offer trade-in events; Target, for one, holds a trade-in event once or twice a year. Bring your old seat to the store, and the store will get rid of it for you responsibly, typically offering you a coupon toward your next purchase.

Beware of falls outside the car: It’s a perhaps-surprising fact that more babies strapped into infant car seats are injured in accidents that occur outside of the car than in actual car crashes, according to a 2010 study published in the journal Pediatrics. Exercise caution when placing your infant on any sort of elevated surface while they’re inside the seat. Falls from the tops of cars and the tops of shopping carts are among the most common—an infant seat is safest inside the shopping cart itself, rather than perched on the cart’s handle. If you’re resting an infant car seat on a stable surface outside the car, rotate the handle down to give it additional support.

Additional reporting by Ingela Ratledge Amundson and Rebecca Gale. This article was edited by Ingela Ratledge Amundson, Amy Miller Kravetz and Kalee Thompson.

Gina Duchossois, CPST and injury prevention expert with the Injury Prevention Program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, chair of Safe Kids Southeastern Pennsylvania , in-person interview, December 2021

Alisa Baer, MD, pediatrician and co-founder of car-seat safety website The Car Seat Lady , phone interviews, November 4, 16, and 18, 2021

Jessica Jermakian, PhD, vice president for vehicle research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) , phone interviews, 2022

Miriam Manary, senior research associate, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute , phone interview , April 24, 2017

Derrell Lyles, public affairs, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration , email interview , May 4, 2017

Dr. Benjamin Hoffman, pediatrician, uncompensated consultant to Chicco on matters of car-seat safety , phone interview , June 21, 2017

Joshua Dilts, marketing product manager, Chicco USA , phone interview , June 21, 2017

William Conway, engineering leader, car seats, Graco , phone interview , June 26, 2017

Daniella Brown, car seat safety advocate, CPST-I , phone interview , June 28, 2017

Lani Harrison, CPST, Car Seats for the Littles , phone interview , June 29, 2017

Meet your guide

Christina Szalinski

Christina Szalinski is a freelance science writer with a PhD in cell biology.

Further reading

The Best Convertible and All-in-One Car Seats

by Christina Szalinski

After researching dozens of seats and testing 17, we’ve concluded that the Graco Extend2Fit Convertible is the best convertible car seat for most families.

The Best Travel Car Seats

by Christina Szalinski and Rebecca Gale

After testing 17 lightweight, portable car seats, we have five good options for infants, toddlers, and big kids to recommend.

Are Rotating Car Seats Worth It?

Rotating car seats are gaining popularity—but for the typical family, they’re not better than simpler options. Here’s what to know before buying one.

When to Switch Car Seats

by Rebecca Gale

Car seats and booster seats are most effective when they’re used for the correct age, stage, and size of kids. We break down when it’s safe to make the switch.

When you use links on our website, we may earn a fee.

Best Infant Car Seats for Safety 2024

The one piece of baby gear that you absolutely need before you bring your little one home from the hospital is an infant car seat. In fact, the hospital won’t let you leave without one. Designed to always sit in the rear-facing position – the position infants must sit in – this style cradles babies in the very early stages of their lives, typically up to no more than 35 pounds. The age they reach that weight limit varies from child to child, as they grow at different paces. Be sure to check the manufacturer’s limits on the seat you choose

You might be wondering why you would purchase an infant car seat over a convertible car seat , which converts to the forward-facing position for longer use. Infant car seats are easier to move between vehicles – unlike convertible models which are more of an install-it-and-leave-it kind of thing. Thus, you can purchase multiple bases for parents’ and grandparents’ cars to make the switch simple.

Infant units also tend to be compatible with strollers as part of a travel system, making running errands and going on getaways a breeze. Take our best overall pick, the Chicco KeyFit 35 Zip ClearTex Infant Car Seat. It comes with a base and is compatible with Chicco strollers so that it can be turned into a money-saving travel unit. The best infant car seats also tend to be less bulky and easier to handle than convertible units. As always, there are pros and cons to each type, but the best infant car seats are created with that first car ride home in mind. After all, all U.S. car seats must pass the same safety tests.

Table of Contents

• Best Infant Car Seats
• Best Overall vs. Best Budget
• Things To Consider When Buying

Chicco KeyFit 35 Zip ClearTex Infant Car Seat  »

Includes base and compatible with Chicco strollers

Five height positions and six recline positions

Reasonably priced

Machine-washable seat pad

UPF 50+ canopy and full-coverage privacy shield

GreenGuard Gold Certified

Not ideal for small cars

On the heavier side for an infant car seat

Approved by the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA), the Chicco KeyFit 35 Zip ClearTex Infant Car Seat stands out as the top infant car seat. It has various installation features, including Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH) connectors, bubble levels, and a steel-reinforced belt system, to make the process quick and easy.

While a bit heavier at 10.5 pounds, this unit is reasonably priced when you consider all the features you get. It has an ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) 50+ canopy, as well as a full coverage privacy shield with mesh on the sides. The seat pad can be tossed in the washing machine and the unit is GreenGuard Gold Certified, meaning it’s built to contribute to safer, healthier air and has been screened for more than 15,000 volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

As your little one grows from 4 to 35 pounds, the weight barrier for this best infant car seat, they’ll remain comfortable with the five height positions and six recline positions. You can easily turn this car seat into a travel unit, thanks to the fact that it’s compatible with Chicco strollers. Just take the car seat out of the base, connect it to the stroller, and click it back in the base again.

Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX Infant Car Seat  »

Solid features for the price

Anti-rebound bar for added safety

SnugLock technology for one-minute installation

Includes base and compatible with Graco strollers

Five recline positions

Machine-washable seat pad and canopy

Buttons may be stiff

Car seats aren’t the cheapest pieces of baby gear, but you can find more affordable options that don’t skimp on style and ease of use. The Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX Infant Car checks these boxes without breaking the bank. Approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), this unit features SnugLock technology that allows for one-minute installation. The bubble indicators will confirm you did it correctly, and you can use this car seat with its LATCH connectors or with a vehicle seatbelt.

For extra peace of mind, this Graco car seat comes with an anti-rebound bar for an added layer of security in the event of an accident. Just like our best overall pick, it accommodates children from 4 to 35 pounds or up to 32 inches tall, whichever comes first. It comes with a base that has five recline positions, and it’s compatible with Graco strollers. Plus, it’s easy enough to toss the seat pad and canopy (which has Silent Shade technology so opening it doesn’t disturb a sleeping baby) in the washing machine for a refresh.

Bugaboo Turtle Air by Nuna Car Seat  »

Only weighs 7.06 pounds

Seven recline positions

No re-thread five-point harness

Machine-washable fabrics

UPF 50+ canopy and peekaboo window

Nuna-patented Tailor tech memory foam

Stroller adapter sold separately

On the pricier side

The lighter the infant car seat, the easier it is to bring your little one on all of life’s adventures — or just tote a sleeping baby into the house. With the Bugaboo Turtle Air by Nuna Car Seat, you’ll be carrying just 7.06 pounds (plus the weight of your baby). This infant car seat is a good choice for cesarean (C)-section moms who aren’t supposed to lift heavy weight while recovering.

This unit packs optimal safety features, including Nuna-patented Tailor tech memory foam for side impact security. Still, the fabrics are machine washable for ease of cleaning.

This car seat was designed to be super comfy with ultra-soft, high-quality merino wool, which helps regulate your child’s temperature. It also comes with an infant inlay to support little bodies. The Bugaboo Turtle Air has a UPF 50+ canopy for sun protection and a peekaboo window so you can keep an eye on them.

You can connect this infant car seat to a Bugaboo stroller, including the Ant, Bee, Butterfly, Donkey, Dragonfly, Fox, and Lynx. However, you must purchase a separate adapter, depending on the model you have, for $29.97 to $99.95. So, factor that cost in if you plan to use this car seat with your stroller.

Nuna Pipa Aire RX + Pipa Relx Base  »

Only weighs 6.2 pounds

FAA-certified with or without a base

Includes base and compatible with all Nuna strollers

Five-second steel-reinforced True lock installation

UPF 50+ canopy and magnetic buckle holders

Four recline positions and multi-position steel stability leg

Only accommodates up to 30 pounds

Speaking of Nuna, you’ll want to take the new Nuna Pipa Aire RX + Pipa Relx Base on planes, trains, and automobiles. At just 6.2 pounds, this infant travel car seat won’t add much weight to your travels. It’s certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and can be used on an aircraft with or without the included base. It’s compatible with all Nuna strollers to create a sleek travel system.

Available in six neutral colors, this unit uses a steel-reinforced True lock for a five-second installation. It has LATCH connectors, an open belt path with lock-off, colored installation indicators, and a multi-position steel stability leg to make it as secure as possible. For added convenience, it has magnetic buckle holders to make putting your baby in the car seat a smooth process.

You really get what you pay for with the Nuna Pipa Aire RX. It’s GreenGuard Gold Certified and made with merino wool and a Tencel lyocell fiber blend. The infant insert and harness cover set is made with Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) organic cotton, which means it follows requirements for organic status through harvesting, manufacturing, and labeling.

Chicco KeyFit 30 ClearTex Infant Car Seat  »

Fits in smaller cars

Three height positions and five recline positions

Canopy doesn’t have UPF protections

Car seats, even those designated for infants, can be bulky. That won’t be a problem with the Chicco KeyFit 30 ClearTex Infant Car Seat, though. Measuring in at 16.5 inches wide by 24 inches tall by 27 inches deep, this compact car seat will fit in a range of smaller vehicles. Keep in mind that its maximum weight is 30 pounds, a bit lower than other infant car seats.

Just like the Chicco KeyFit 35 Zip ClearTex Infant Car Seat, which we named best overall on this list, the KeyFit 30 model comes with a base and is compatible with Chicco strollers. It doesn’t have as many height positions and recline positions — three and five, respectively — but it’s still enough to guarantee a comfortable ride.

What might be most impressive about this best infant car seat, besides its machine-washable fabrics and GreenGuard Gold Certified status, is that it’s wallet-friendly. Compact, affordable, and JPMA certified? This is a solid option all around.

Clek Liing  »

Newborn body support system with two-stage insert

Compatible with stroller brands Uppababy, Bugaboo, and more

Includes base but not required for installation

Seven recline positions adjustable after installation

UPF 50+ canopy with three positions

Aircraft approved

Button to loosen straps is hidden

The Clek Liing features a two-stage insert to keep the littlest newborns’ heads and bodies supported. Parents can feel reassured that the drive home from the hospital will be snug. Clek is a Canadian brand, but its car seats have been designed to meet both the U.S. and Canadian performance requirements. It has gone through Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) 213 crash testing and New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) testing, part of the NHTSA.

This unit offers the European belt path, which has the shoulder belt wrapped around the back of the car seat. It differs from the American belt path, which has the shoulder belt just resting against the back of the car seat. The European way is known for being more stable — plus, it allows installation without the base. Couple that with the model’s LATCH connectors, bubble indicator, and 13-position metal load leg, and the setup will be solid.

This car seat was designed to be compatible with a range of stroller brands, including UPPAbaby, Bugaboo, Baby Jogger, and more. Since it’s also aircraft-approved, the Clek Liing makes a smart travel car seat, too.

Doona + Car Seat & Stroller  »

Converts from car seat to stroller in seconds

Wheels are tucked under the body in car seat mode

Comes fully assembled and ready to use

UPF 50+ and water-repellent canopy

Adjustable handlebar that doubles as an anti-rebound bar

FAA approved

No cup holder or storage

There’s no need to remove the car seat from the stroller when the car seat is part of the stroller. The Doona + Car Seat & Stroller is a unique system that folds up in seconds so you can pop it into the base in your vehicle. The wheels tuck up, so there’s no extra stroller frame to make room for in the trunk.

Functionality aside, the Doona just looks good. It’s available in seven bold colors to enhance the canopy, which has UPF 50+ sun protection and water-repellent ability. The adjustable handlebar doubles as an anti-rebound bar for protection in the event of a collision. And this unit is made from premium-grade fiber-reinforced polymers and rust-free aluminum to last beyond your first child.

Although it weighs 17 pounds and is on the expensive side, it’s a car seat and stroller in one so it holds great value. Plus, it’s FAA-approved, so it can go with you pretty much anywhere. To make it even better, the Doona arrives fully assembled, so you just have to unpack it, unfold it, and you’re ready to go. Megan Wood, Senior Editor at U.S. News 360 Reviews, brought her daughter home from the hospital in the Doona and still uses it as her primary car seat and stroller. She appreciates how easy it is to convert into a stroller, making it safe and convenient to bring the baby along on errands and outings. Wood says, “I’ve also used the Doona on six flights. It’s ideal for strolling her through the airport and then gate checking it before we board. On arrival, I have an infant carseat and a stroller for vacation without packing additional gear. I’m taking it to Italy this year!”

Uppababy Mesa Max  »

Designed to be installed within seconds

SmartSecure system with visual indicators

No re-thread adjustable harness

Choice of DualTech and PureTech fabrics

UPF 25+ canopy and included base

Some Uppababy strollers require a separately sold adapter

Uppababy is known for making some of the best strollers, but it also makes quality car seats. The Uppababy Mesa Max was designed to make installation virtually effortless. The combination of its SmartSecure system, auto-retracting LATCH design, bubble level indicators, and red-to-green visual indicators allows this best infant car seat to be set up in seconds. The included base has a load leg for extra safety. Keep in mind that the four recline positions are adjustable during that quick installation process.

Certified by the JPMA and American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), the Mesa Max has an anti-rebound panel for added protection in case there’s a rear-impact collision. It features a UPF 25+ canopy and no re-thread adjustable harness. To top it off, it’s GreenGuard Gold Certified.

One decision you’ll have to make with this unit is if you want the DualTech or PureTech fabric. The DualTech combines fire retardant-free foam and dual-knit fabric that are specially woven so no additional treatment is needed. The PureTech is a merino wool fabric, which is hypoallergenic, temperature regulated, and fire retardant free. It’s specially woven to eliminate the need for additional treatment.

The Bottom Line

Although an infant car seat is typically only used until a child is around 2 years old (depending on their weight and height), it’s probably the first piece of baby gear that’s going to touch your little one. When deciding which one is best for your vehicle, consider how much room you have, what kind of installation process you’re comfortable with, and what other extras are on your must-have list. The best unit for you will be in your price range, have an appealing style, and encompass the right features. You can’t go wrong with the Chicco KeyFit 35 Zip ClearTex Infant Car Seat. It has a range of height and recline positions, comes with a UPF 50+ canopy and a full-coverage privacy shield, and is affordable given its quality and features.

The Best Overall vs. The Best Budget Infant Car Seats

Just $80 separates our best overall pick, the Chicco KeyFit 35 Zip ClearTex Infant Car Seat, and our best budget pick, the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX Infant Car Seat. Further similarities include each one having multiple recline positions, being compatible with strollers from their brands, and featuring machine-washable fabrics. So, is that extra $80 worth it? Well, it might be.

The Chicco stands out because it has many installation features, such as a SuperCinch force-multiplying tightener and ReclineSure spring-loaded leveling foot, that make the process headache-free. This model also has a UPF 50+ canopy to keep your little one protected. The fact that it’s GreenGuard Gold Certified is nice, too. So if you’re choosing between the Chicco and the Graco, you have to decide just how important those extra features are to your family and lifestyle. Both of them made our list for a reason, though, so either one is a smart option.

Things To Consider When Buying Infant Car Seats

Safety Ratings and Certifications

If a car seat is being sold in the U.S., it must meet safety requirements set by the NHTSA. It also must be labeled with the statement, “This child restraint system conforms to all applicable Federal motor vehicle safety standards,” explains Joe Colella, JPMA director of Child Passenger Safety and 2020 Child Passenger Safety Hall of Fame Inductee.

“Most infant seats that come with a detachable base can also be installed in the vehicle and used without the base. Both options must meet the same Federal crash performance requirements, so either installation method is safe and provides protection when used according to the manufacturer’s instructions,” says Colella.

Some of the best infant car seats have an anti-rebound bar. Its purpose is that if there is a rearward collision, the handle absorbs the impact so the car seat doesn’t move, helping prevent rebound injuries. It’s also a nice touch if the unit is GreenGuard Certified or complies with FMVSS 213, meaning it has foam padding and fire-retardant materials.

Seat Size and Vehicle Compatibility

While most infant car seats fit in most vehicles, double-check to ensure you won’t need to make a return later. Also, think about the number of people you hope to accommodate in the backseat. Some models are so compact that three of them can fit in one row. However, if they’re on the bulkier side, you’ll want your other passengers to be comfortable. Manufacturers provide the dimensions so you have all the necessary information to make a smart buying decision.

“Not all car seats fit in all vehicles. It's essential to check the car seat dimensions and compare them with your vehicle's backseat space,” says Sarah Hollingsworth, founder and CEO of Poppylist, a baby registry site. “Additionally, consider how the seat will fit if other car seats or passengers need to be accommodated. Most manufacturers provide a compatibility guide; some stores offer a trial fitting in your car before purchase.”

Adjustability and Growth Accommodation

While infant car seats are made with infants in mind, they’re designed to be used until your baby is about 30 or 35 pounds, so check your model’s limits. Since a lot of growth happens between birth and 2 years of age, there still needs to be adjustable features.

“Infant car seats are designed with growth in mind, featuring adjustable harnesses and multiple harness and crotch strap positions,” says Hollingsworth. “This allows the seat to be adjusted as your baby grows, ensuring a snug and safe fit. Some models also come with removable head and body support pillows for smaller infants, which can be removed as the baby grows.”

Keep an eye on when your child needs to move out of any infant inserts and the infant car seat altogether. It’s not safe to leave your little one in the unit if they’ve outgrown the parameters.

Installation System and Ease of Use

“There are generally two installation systems: seat belt and LATCH,” explains Hollingsworth. “The LATCH system can be easier and usually more secure, as it involves attaching the seat directly to the vehicle. However, not all cars have LATCH anchors in all positions, and older cars may not. Seat belt installations are more universal but require careful reading of the car seat and vehicle manuals to ensure proper installation.”

Some infant car seats make installation easier — and provide peace of mind for parents — by providing additional features, including bubble level indicators and a stability leg.

Comfort and Infant Support Features

Infant car seats are designed to hold the littlest of babies, so it’s that much more important to be supportive.

“Many infant car seats come with comfort cushions like head supports, body pillows, or other positioners for small babies,” says Colella. “Some such cushions must be removed when the child reaches a specified weight or other growth characteristic. It is important to check the manufacturer instructions and follow them carefully. Instructions reflect the way the car seat was designed to be used and are based on extensive testing.”

Head supports and other types of cushioning may be sold separately as accessories you can choose to add on. However, check that the specific accessory is compatible and accepted for your car seat, especially if it’s from a different brand or manufacturer. “Many are not because they may affect crash performance and have not been extensively tested with the specific car seat model,” says Colella.

Harness System and Secure Fit

Infant car seats include a five-point harness that restrains your child at their shoulders and hips. The shoulder and hip harnesses will be adjustable, and some allow for different crotch harness positions, too. Many units have extra padding on these straps for added comfort for your child. On rear-facing car seats, like infant ones, the child’s head should be at least 1 inch below the top of the car seat, and the harness straps should be at or below the child’s shoulders (not below). The chest clip should be buckled and positioned at the armpit live, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The harness straps should be snug, meaning you can’t pinch them.

How to Use an Infant Car Seat Safely

“Car seats can only be used as long as the child is within its allowed height, weight, and age requirements for each mode of use,” says Colella. Since babies hit milestones at different points, keep an eye on when your child is creeping up to your infant car seat’s maximum limits.

“Infant car seats are typically designed for our youngest and smallest children, with minimum weights of 3 or 4 pounds and upper limits ranging from 20 to 35 pounds, and may only be installed and used facing the rear of the vehicle,” says Colella. “The infant stage comes and goes quickly, so it is critical for parents and caregivers to regularly evaluate the proper fit of their child’s car seat.”

An infant car seat doesn’t convert to a forward-facing position, so you don’t want to wait until your child is nearing the maximum height and weight before knowing how they’ll safely sit in the car next. Using an infant car seat safely includes knowing when it’s time to move them out of it.

How to Clean and Maintain an Infant Car Seat

The good news is that most car seats feature seat pads, covers, and fabrics that can be tossed in the washing machine. Some are even dryer-safe, too. Follow the cleaning instructions that the manufacturer recommends, but it’ll likely say you should wash on a gentle, cold cycle. If the fabrics aren’t dryer-safe, factor in that you must let them air dry completely before putting them back on the car seat.

“Regular cleaning helps maintain the seat's condition and ensures your baby's hygienic environment,” notes Hollingsworth. And using a good car vacuum is a handy way to quickly clean up all the dirt, debris, and crumbs that find their way into crevices.

Another way to maintain your car seat is by placing a sun shade over it in between uses. It especially comes in handy on sunny days, as it prevents the fabric from fading and keeps the car seat itself from getting too hot for your child to sit in.

How We Chose the Best Infant Car Seats

Infant car seats are designed to always be rear facing and support a child up until they’re about 35 pounds. However, there are still distinctions between them. To find the top options, we looked at their customization options, such as headrest heights and recline positions, the weight of the carriers, ease of installation, and, most importantly, safety certifications and features. We also spoke with Joe Colella, the director of Child Passenger Safety at JPMA and Sarah Hollingsworth, founder and CEO of baby registry site, Poppylist . They provided invaluable insight into what parents need to know about shopping for the best infant car seats. This process led us to the best eight models.

WHY SHOULD YOU TRUST US?

Caitlyn Fitzpatrick , the author of this piece, has been researching, testing, and covering the best products on the market, including in the parenting space, since 2017. She has covered other baby gear stories for U.S. News 360 Reviews, including the best bassinets , baby swings , and baby bouncers . Her work can also be found on Trusted Media Brands and Hearst Digital Media sites. Fitzpatrick is also a mom herself and understands that fellow parents want only the best products for their child, no matter their price range. So, she aimed to find options within different budgets and with diverse features to appeal to just about everyone. Megan Wood , the editor of this piece, has been a Senior Editor with U.S. News 360 Reviews since 2023. She focuses on baby gear coverage and understands just how important it is to find the right products for your family.

Your newborn will need some sort of car seat from day one. They don’t necessarily need an infant car seat, as parents may choose to go with a convertible car seat instead. However, there are various reasons why an infant car seat is the way to go.

“Convenience features, like stay-in-car bases and matching strollers, are key reasons why many families prefer to begin with infant seats,” says Colella. Plus, they’re specifically designed to carefully cradle tiny bodies.

Generally speaking, a baby will be able to use an infant car seat until around 2 years old. But don’t focus on that number. The weight and height limits are the pivotal pieces of information.

“Depending on the specific model, current infant car seats require a minimum child weight of 3 to 5 pounds and allow a maximum child weight of 20 to 35 pounds,” says Colella. “Allowed height ranges also vary by model. Like other car seats, infant car seats can only be used as long as the child is within the allowed height and weight requirements.”

The good news is that most car seats feature seat pads, covers, and fabrics that can be tossed in the washing machine. Some are even dryer-safe, too. Follow the cleaning instructions that the manufacturer recommends, but it’ll likely say you should wash on a gentle, cold cycle. If the fabrics aren’t dryer safe, factor in that you must let them air dry completely before putting them back on the car seat.

“Regular cleaning helps maintain the seat's condition and ensures your baby's hygienic environment,” notes Hollingsworth.

About Our Team

Caitlyn Fitzpatrick

Contributor

Senior Editor, 360 Reviews

U.S. News 360 Reviews takes an unbiased approach to our recommendations. When you use our links to buy products, we may earn a commission but that in no way affects our editorial independence.

Your cart is empty

Have an account?

Log in to check out faster.

Car Seat Stroller Combos

Shyft DualRide: The Ultimate On-the-Go Combo A single piece of baby gear...  

Pivot Xpand Travel System

With litemax infant car seat, pivot xpand modular travel system with litemax infant car seat.

Couldn't load pickup availability

Child Fit - Rear-Facing Infant Car Seat

Child fit - toddler seat, product dimensions, modes of use, designed for ultimate flexibility, peace of mind.

Being a parent has enough stress as it is, that's why we can assure you that we can give you as much time as you need.

Supported by ParentLink Consumer Care via chat and email

Overall, this is an amazing stroller. it comes with everything you need to have a stroller that grows with you and your family without needing to constantly shell out extra money for different accessories. it is easy to use, folds up quickly and compactly, and is extremely versatile, and i will definitely be recommending this product to my friends., join the club.

Become a member and earn points & exclusive rewards every time you shop.

Benefits of shopping evenflo.com

Give 20, Get 20

Pay With Affirm

Community Heroes Discount

Evenflo Blog

• Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
• Opens in a new window.

7 Best Car Seats for Toddlers

These safe choices are especially great for a 2- or 3-year-old who has outgrown their infant car seat.

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

Best Overall Toddler Car Seat

Graco extend2fit convertible car seat.

Best Value Toddler Car Seat

Safety 1st grow and go all-in-one convertible car seat.

Most Comfortable Toddler Car Seat

Chicco nextfit max cleartex convertible car seat.

Despite the proliferation of all-in-one car seats that fit a kid from birth to age 10, many of us still begin with our newborn in an infant car seat with a carry handle. Infant car seats make it easy to cart a baby from home to car and back again. Some are sold as car seat stroller combos . They're very convenient for the first year or two and then things change. (Lugging a 25-pound toddler in a 10-pound car seat is no joke!)

But as children grow bigger, parents often look for a toddler car seat so they can just lift their 1-, 2- or 3-year-old in and out of a seat that stays secured in the car. The best car seats for toddlers are convertible car seats that can be installed either rear-facing or forward-facing. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) asks you to keep a toddler rear-facing as long as possible , ideally to age 3, 4 or even 5.

For this toddler-specific list, our experts at the Good Housekeeping Institute focused on car seats with extended rear-facing weight limits. We also looked for comfortable, adjustable seats made for wiggly, fast-growing preschoolers. We prioritized multiple reclines, no-rethread harnesses and comfortable padding to (hopefully!) help keep your toddler calm. Finally, we considered cupholders and machine-washable fabrics, too, because toddlers are hungry, thirsty and messy little people.

Young children should always ride in a car seat in the back seat of your car. To better understand car seats and their usage you can find car seat tips from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and other experts at the end of this guide.

This groundbreaking convertible car seat was one of the first to focus on toddler travel, and it's still beloved. (It's got more than 65,000 five-star Amazon reviews.) The main feature is an extension panel you can pull out to provide up to five inches of extra legroom to a toddler in the rear-facing position. The caveat is that it then takes up more space in the backseat, so in a small car, you may need to scoot one of the front seats forward to accommodate it. This toddler car seat can stay rear-facing until your child reaches 50 pounds, giving them a good shot at staying in that safe position past their fourth birthday.

The Extend2Fit offers six recline positions. The headrest, with its generous head cushions, can be adjusted to any of 10 heights. Two built-in cupholders hold some of your toddler's stuff. At 19 pounds this is one of the lighter car seats on our list. The fabric can be washed in cold water on the delicate cycle and hung to dry. Your child is likely to outgrow this or any convertible car seat shortly after Kindergarten, at which point you'll need a booster car seat .

If you want to consider a seat that stretches from toddlerhood through the booster years, we also like the Graco 4Ever all-in-one car seat — though the 4Ever only works rear-facing to 40 pounds. If your bigger priority is fitting three car seats across the back seat, the Graco Slimfit3 won one of our Parenting Awards , but again, it only stays rear-facing to 40 pounds. For that reason this Extend2Fit is a toddler-age favorite, having the edge as far as being able to be rear-facing to 50 pounds.

RELATED: The Best Rotating Car Seats

Plenty of families need to zero in on the best car seats under $200, and this is one of them. The Grow and Go is an all-in-one car seat that can accommodate your toddler through the school years . That's because it converts to a belt-positioning booster seat. But it can only stay rear-facing until your child reaches 40 pounds, which is a lower threshold than some other seats on this list.

Online reviewers say it takes some muscle to get this to fit tightly, so installation is a bit of a pain point. Even so, it has more than 25,000 five-star Amazon reviews. Parents appreciate it for its value but say it's also comfortable for a kid — the headrest has a sliding adjustment that helps you get it to just the right height as your toddler grows.

It's also the lightest-weight toddler car seat on our list, which many parents appreciate. The fabric is machine-washable and there are two built-in cupholders.

Chicco's toddler car seat, the NextFit Max ClearTex, can stay rear-facing until your child weighs 50 pounds. That's longer than other versions of the NextFit, so look for the Max ClearTex specifically.

We also like that the ClearTex fabric is Greenguard Gold Certified for low chemical emissions. Online reviewers rave about the comfort of this deep seat that features calf support , especially nice when young kids are moved to the forward-facing position and have their feet dangling. The cupholder is removable and dishwasher-safe, and can be placed on either side of the seat. The seat pad can go in the washing machine.

In Lab testing our pros have come to appreciate Chicco's LATCH connectors with the brand's "SuperCinch" tightener. It's easy to get a tight installation without having to physically climb in and press down on this seat. The LATCH also disconnects easily with the push of a button, in case you need to move this from one car to another. This is one of the heaviest car seats on our list, so it's not an easy one to take on vacation. If you do need to travel with it, consider Chicco's car seat travel bag which can be pushed on its wheels or worn like a backpack.

Nuna RAVA Convertible Car Seat

Fans of Nuna say that their products feel luxe, and that includes this RAVA convertible car seat made with machine-washable knit fabric that's Greenguard-Gold certified. You can find this seat in soft, beautiful colors like beige, blush and blue, some of which are exclusive to retailers such as Nordstrom and Pottery Barn Kids.

The Rava has 10 recline positions and 10 headrest positions, and it can stay rear-facing to 50 pounds. Two cupholders can pop out or be pressed in as needed. But what online reviewers mention often is this fitting well into even small cars . Plus it's got thoughtful details such as pockets you can use to can hold the harness out of the way while you load your toddler in.

Nuna suggests that users install the RAVA using the vehicle seat belt, but it also includes the LATCH system. This is the heaviest car seat on our list and it's not easy to travel with or to move car to car, but it is FAA-certified for use in an airplane. The brand offers excellent customer support including virtual car seat checks . It is, however, the most expensive toddler car seat on our list.

Britax Boulevard ClickTight

What parents love about any Britax convertible car seat is the brand's ClickTight installation that helps lock the seat in easily and securely using the car's seat belt . Our Lab experts love it too — it's nice to be able to get a tight fit without having to wrestle with the car seat, and you don't need to fuss with LATCH at all. The Boulevard has been around for years but this latest version features machine-washable fabric that's naturally flame retardant. (The fabric can go in the dryer, too!) The Britax cupholder is sold separately.

We also like this seat for toddlers because of how easy it is to adjust. It's got 14 recline and headrest positions, and the harness moves in tandem with the headrest which makes micro-adjustments easier. That's all extra appreciated in the toddler years, when kids are generally at their fussiest. But the Boulevard (and the other popular Britax toddler car seat, the Britax Marathon ) can each only stay rear-facing up to 40 pounds.

If you decide that extended rear-facing is a must, see our choice for best all-in-one car seat , the Britax One4Life . It's a little bigger and not as adjustable, but it can stay rear-facing to 50 pounds and then become a booster seat.

Diono Radian 3R

The unique feature of this all-in-one car seat: You can fold it and wear it like a backpack for travel, and it's FAA-approved for use in an airplane with its five-point harness. The Radian 3R has that name because of its slim width; you can fit three of these across most vehicle back seats.

But online users are split about how well this works with small cars; it's a little more than 28 inches tall, so in the rear-facing position it might bump up against the front seat. That said, it can stay safely rear-facing for an extended amount of time, until your child reaches 50 pounds.

This all-in-one car seat also has the highest weight limit of any on this list. In booster mode, it can hold your child up to 120 pounds. That means it can last for the rest of their childhood! It's also among the best value for a toddler car seat. There are a few hassles though. The harness must be rethread into new slots each time your child grows large enough to graduate to the next harness height. This also can't be reclined for rests; it stays at whatever angle you install it at. (There's no adjusting the headrest either, but it's so high that your kid will be fine in that regard.) The fabric can be machine-washed and hung to dry. Add Diono cupholders separately as a two-pack.

Peg Perego Primo Viaggio Convertible Kinetic

Italian brand Peg Perego makes this newest seat on our list, and we're impressed by the anti-rebound bar that offers an added layer of crash protection and which is usually only seen on infant car seats. You use it only in rear-facing mode and can stow it away when you turn your toddler forward after they reach 45 pounds. This seat also comes with a spacer you can use in conjunction with the anti-rebound bar to give your rear-facing toddler an extra two inches of legroom.

Consumer testers were impressed with the fabric of the Primo Viaggio Kinetic. ("My other car seats don’t look as luxe as this!" a parent of a toddler told us.) But there are no special helpers for installation and getting this to fit with either the LATCH system or the car's seatbelt might take some muscle. It does have 10 possible positions for recline and the headrest, helping you easily adjust it for your child's comfort and size. The fabric is machine-washable (just hang it to dry) and this comes with a removable, washable cupholder.

How we test car seats for toddlers

In the past five years the Parenting Lab of the Good Housekeeping Institute has tested dozens of toddler car seats both in-Lab and with at-home testers. Our pros have reviewed both convertible car seats and newer all-in-one car seats. For this story we pulled Lab favorites and reviewed newer testing notes, plus poured through current online reviews to find what we feel are the most toddler-friendly car seats.

What to look for in a toddler car seat

Shopping for the safest car seat for your 2-year-old or 3-year-old? During these preschool years you'll want to consider:

✔️ Extended rear-facing : It used to be that we turned babies forward-facing at their second birthday. Then common sense kicked in: If rear-facing is the safest position, why turn them early? Now the guidance from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is to " keep your child rear-facing as long as possible. It’s the best way to keep him or her safe. Your child should remain in a rear-facing car seat until he or she reaches the top height or weight limit allowed by your car seat’s manufacturer." If you're curious as to the physics of all this, the Car Seat Lady has a video explaining why rear-facing is safer .

There are now many convertible car seats that are built to face the rear until a child weighs 50 pounds, which for many means about age 5 or Kindergarten age. Others can stay rear-facing to 40 or 45 pounds. Every kid hits weights at different ages, which is why it's important to go by weight (and height) rather than age when deciding how long your child can ride rear-facing.

✔️ Multiple reclines : Your toddler might want to be a big kid and sit up, but in many ways they are still a baby. On long drives, they'll want to rest in a recline . While the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) asks you to not use an infant car seat as a sleep tool in your home , they recognize that kids will likely nap while traveling, especially on a long road trip.

✔️ Easy to adjust harness : Not to harp on the "way back when" but you used to always have to rethread the harness on a convertible car seat as your child grew. One car seat on our list still requires that; the other six have no-rethread harnesses that slide up and down so you can get the right fit without making a big deal of it.

Here's a harness reminder from Safe Kids Worldwide : In rear-facing mode, the shoulder straps should come through the car seat slots at or just below your child's shoulders. In forward-facing mode, the shoulder straps should be at or just above the shoulders.

Types of car seats by age

At every age you have a few choices when it comes to car seats. That's both reassuring (there's not one "right" type of toddler car seat) and confusing (how to choose?). NHTSA explains the different car seats like this (note that there's some crossover with the age categories):

Three Possible Car Seat Types for Babies from Birth to Age 3

• An infant car seat only faces the rear of the car and is designed especially to cradle a baby. You install an infant car seat base in your vehicle and then can take the seat out and carry it around with your baby inside. Most infant car seats are built to stay rear-facing for at least the first two years and hold a baby up to 30 or 35 pounds. • A convertible car seat can change from rear-facing to forward-facing. You can use one of these from birth, but you won't be able to carry your baby around in it — it's meant to stay in the car. Because it can be used with children of various sizes, it allows for children to stay in the rear-facing position longer, and many parents switch to one of these for the toddler years. • An all-in-one car seat is like a convertible car seat except that it eventually transitions to a booster seat, and so it lasts even longer. Like a convertible car seat, you can't carry your kid around in one, so though it's money-saving and eco-friendly to buy only one car seat to last from birth to age 10, many parents do opt to start with an infant car seat.

Two Possible Car Seat Types for Toddlers from Birth to Age 7

• As noted above, many parents switch to a convertible car seat for the toddler years if they started with an infant car seat. Many do the switch when their toddler is 1, 2 or 3 years old. In this story we cover several convertible car seats that we feel have features that can be especially welcome in the toddler years. A convertible car seat has a five-point safety harness that can hold a child in a forward-facing position to 65 pounds. • You could also invest in an all-in-one car seat during the toddler years, if not at birth. Because it will convert to a booster after your child hits 65 pounds, thereafter utilizing the car's seat belt to hold your child in place, you'll be done with car seat shopping. A few of the choices in this story are all-in-one car seats that turn into boosters.

Three Possible Car Seats for School-Age Kid from Age 4 to 12

• If you've been using a convertible car seat, you'll next want to move to a booster car seat with a high back . These seats literally "boost" your kid up so that the seat belt fits properly. A highback booster also provides neck and head support. • A backless booster also lifts your child up to the right height for the seat belt. It's a little more grown-up because your big kid will just rest their back on the seat back. These are small and portable, easy to move from car to car, but they don't provide head or neck support, so they're not best for young kids who nap in the car. • Finally, you guessed it: If you got an all-in-one car seat it should take you to the end of car seat use.

These days many kids use a booster car seat through age 10. A child is ready to use a seat belt with no support once they are 57 inches tall and old enough (which varies according to state laws , but usually at minimum 8 years old). When a big kid sits on the car's seat, the seat belt should fit across their shoulder and over their upper legs or hips, not their belly.

Why trust Good Housekeeping?

Scientists, engineers and journalists have been working together at the Good Housekeeping Institute to test and recommend consumer products for more than 100 years. We work hand-in-hand with GH's editorial staff to be able to offer parenting news and trends as well as reviews of products such as lightweight strollers and the best toys for toddlers .

This list was compiled by Contributing Writer Jessica Hartshorn who has followed the juvenile product industry for 25 years. She was an editor at Parents magazine and American Baby magazine and continues to help judge the annual JPMA Innovation Awards. She also helps judge GH's annual Parenting Awards . For this guide, she relied on the GH Institute's Lab testing data, consumer tester notes and her own extensive experience studying car seat technology. She's also a mom of two.

Jessica (she/her) is a freelance writer with several decades of experience writing lifestyle content and evaluating home and parenting products. A mom of two teens and two cats, her previous work can be seen in American Baby and Parents .

Product Reviews

The Best Carpet Cleaners for Pet Messes

The 5 Best Smart Rings

The 5 Best Automatic Dog Feeders

The Warmest Winter Coats for Women

The Best Sleeper Chairs

The Softest Sheets

The Best Vacuum Mop Combos

The Best Latex Pillows

The Best Mattresses

The Best Humidifiers for Babies

The Best Cordless Drills

The Best Outdoor TVs