The Best Anti-Theft Backpacks, Judged on the Theft They Actually Stop
Published
Every anti-theft backpack is sold against the same villain: a stranger with a blade who slits your bag open on a crowded tram. None of the crime statistics we checked even counts that theft. The thieves who do show up are duller: they open a zip you left open, or walk off with the bag you set down beside your chair. Here are seven backpacks, from $40 to $290, judged on which of those thieves they actually stop.
Pacsafe EXP45$289.95
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Pacsafe GO 25L$119.95
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Travelon Heritage$145
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Baggallini Securtex Vacation$120
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XD Design Bobby Hero Regular€129.95
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Arden Cove Carmel$259
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MATEIN Mlassic$39.99
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| Built to stop | Stealth, snatch and slashing: the full stack | Stealth and slashing, everyday | Stealth and slashing, daypack | Stealth and slashing, compact | Stealth, by hiding the zips | Stealth and the chair grab | Stealth, lightly |
| Capacity | 45 L | 25 L | 22 L | 8.5 L | 16 L | 4.8 L | 28 L |
| Weight | 3.97 lb (1.8 kg) | 1.6 lb (0.73 kg) | 2.9 lb (1.3 kg) | 1 lb 1 oz (0.48 kg) | 2.4 lb (1.1 kg) | 1.7 lb (0.77 kg) | 1.68 lb (0.76 kg) |
| Slash protection | Steel mesh body, cut-resistant straps | Steel mesh, cut-resistant straps | Mesh in front, sides and base; strap | Interior panels; double-cable strap | Cut-resistant fabric | Cut-resistant lining | None |
| Locking zips | Yes | Zip clip | Yes | Yes | Hidden zips | Yes, all exterior zips | Per Pack Hacker |
| Anchor strap | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
| Editorial backing | T+L Best RFID | None | Pack Hacker Best Daypack | T+L Best Overall; GH Best Compact | T+L picked its sibling, the Bobby Bizz | T+L Best Waterproof | Pack Hacker Best Budget; GH Best Value |
This guide sits alongside our women's travel backpacks and our guide to carry-on backpacks that actually fit the sizers.
How Bags Actually Get Stolen
The best long-run picture comes from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which asks victims directly rather than relying on what gets reported. The Office for National Statistics' overview of theft from the person found that stealth theft, meaning pickpocketing and lifting things without the victim noticing, typically made up between 50% and 60% of incidents, and snatch theft between 10% and 20%, with failed attempts making up the rest. That split comes from survey data running to 2017, and the Home Office's own 2013 crime-prevention pack put stealth even higher, at around 70 to 80%. Either way, the quiet hand in the open zip is the majority case.
The problem has not gone away. Police in England and Wales recorded 115,891 theft-from-the-person offences in the year to June 2026, and snatching has grown since the ONS split was published: the Home Office estimated in 2024 that 78,000 people had a phone or bag grabbed in a single year, an increase of more than 150%. Many of those are phones taken from hands, which no backpack protects.
In the United States, where most thefts are property crime of a different shape, the FBI's 2019 national breakdown tells a similar story about proportion. Of all larceny-thefts in 2019, pocket-picking accounted for 0.6% and purse-snatching for 0.4%; theft from motor vehicles alone was 27%. A bag is far more likely to be stolen from a car seat than from your back.
Bag slashing, the theft the whole category is built around, appears in none of these datasets, because none of them records it. What does exist is government travel advice that names it for specific places. Australia's Smartraveller describes luggage slashing as common on buses and trains to and from Athens airport and on Greek island ferries, and bag slashing as common in Vietnam's tourist areas, markets and crowded transport. The US State Department's country advice describes thieves cutting bags or straps in India, San Marino and Burkina Faso. The UK Foreign Office, across its advice for 226 countries, mentions strap-cutting snatches in Cambodia and Malaysia and never mentions bag slashing at all. That pattern is the honest answer: slashing is real, and it is local.
What Each Anti-Theft Feature Actually Stops
Read against that evidence, the features on an anti-theft spec sheet sort themselves into three groups: the ones that stop the common theft, the ones that stop a real but local one, and the one that stops a theft nobody has recorded.
- Lockable or clip-together zips stop a hand quietly opening the main compartment. They matter everywhere, because this is the majority theft. The cost: every coffee stop becomes a two-handed job.
- Hidden or back-facing zips stop pickpocketing while the bag is on your back, in crowds, in queues and on public transport. The cost: you take the bag off to reach anything.
- An anchor or locking strap stops the grab of a bag set down beside you in cafés, on trains, in hostels and at airport gates. It only works if you remember to use it.
- Slash-resistant mesh or panels stop a blade through the fabric, which matters in the specific places governments flag, such as Vietnam and Athens airport transport. You pay for it in weight, stiffness and price.
- Cut-resistant straps stop a strap being cut during a snatch, the risk in motorbike snatch hotspots across Southeast Asia. The cost is stiffer, heavier straps.
- An RFID-blocking pocket stops a contactless read of your card or passport, which on the evidence almost never happens (more below). It usually costs nothing, so long as you don't pay extra for it.
Two caveats keep that list honest. The brands themselves don't claim invincibility: Pacsafe describes its steel-mesh eXomesh as something that helps "deter slash-and-grab theft" and makes attempts more difficult, which is the right way to describe a lock of any kind. And the one publication that tested anti-theft features with real force got through some of them. Travel + Leisure tested 24 anti-theft backpacks with a box cutter and a chair-tether snatch test; its testers cut through the straps of one commuter bag, and the chair-lock strap of another broke outright. Friction is what you're buying, not immunity.
How We Chose, and How We Checked
We did not run our own slash tests, and we won't pretend otherwise. Where this guide mentions a bag surviving a blade or a snatch, the test belongs to the publication named, mostly Travel + Leisure, whose January 2026 guide is the only editorial test we found that attacked the security features themselves. Pack Hacker and Good Housekeeping supplied further picks; Wirecutter, OutdoorGearLab and Condé Nast Traveler currently publish no anti-theft backpack guide at all.
Every price, capacity, weight, dimension and material below was read from the brand's own product page in November 2026, at full price rather than sale price. One brand sells only in its home currency: XD Design's prices are in euros, and we've left them that way rather than invent a dollar figure. Prices move; the links go to the live pages.
Built for Theft: The Security-First Picks
These four are anti-theft bags first and backpacks second. They carry the most protection, they look like it, and they make the most sense where the risk is highest: dense tourist cities, long transit days, and the places governments actually name.
Pacsafe EXP45 Anti-Theft Carry-On Travel Pack
Pacsafe is the name most people reach for first in this category: it builds anti-theft bags and little else, and several of the terms in this guide, eXomesh, Roobar, ToughZip, are its own. The EXP45 is its full-size carry-on travel pack, and the one Travel + Leisure named best RFID backpack after its 24-bag test. Pack Hacker gives its "best anti-theft travel backpack" title to the smaller EXP35, which we've already covered among our women's travel picks; the 45 is the same idea built for longer trips and a 16-inch laptop.
It is the only bag here that answers every row of the feature table. The body is 750D recycled polyester with Pacsafe's stainless steel eXomesh behind it, the straps are reinforced against cutting, the zips are both lockable and puncture-resistant, so harder to force open with a sharp point, and a PopNLock anchor strap lets you fix it to a chair, a bunk or a luggage rack. The harness and hip belt make it a genuine travel pack rather than a city bag with ambitions, and the straps tuck away when you'd rather carry it like a duffle.
The cost of all that is weight. At 3.97 lb empty it is the heaviest bag in this guide, and at $289.95 it is the most expensive; the security is part of both numbers. It also looks like what it is, a serious travel pack with visible locking hardware. For a long trip through the places where slashing and snatching are documented risks, that's a fair trade. For a commute in a city where the realistic threat is an open zip, it's a lot of steel to carry every day.
Pacsafe GO 25L Anti-Theft Backpack
The GO collection is Pacsafe's lighter everyday line, and the 25-litre backpack is the one Google's own AI summary currently names as the best everyday anti-theft bag. That isn't an award, but it does reflect what the category's readers keep landing on: a Pacsafe that doesn't look or weigh like an expedition.
The specification is the interesting part. At 1.6 lb it weighs less than half what the EXP45 does, yet it keeps the eXomesh slashguard and cut-resistant straps, which is where Pacsafe's weight usually goes. The main compartment closes with a zip clip rather than a full locking system, there's a hidden pocket for the passport or the spare card, and the laptop sleeve takes a 16-inch machine. The fabric is 600D recycled polyester with a water-resistant coating.
What you give up is the anchor strap and the full Roobar lock, so it protects you well while it's on your back and less well once you put it down. For a commuter or a city-break traveller who wants real protection against the common theft and some insurance against the local one, without paying the EXP45's price in money or pounds, it is the most sensible Pacsafe in the range. It is also the one we'd point most readers to first.
Travelon Anti-Theft Heritage Backpack
Travelon is an American travel-accessories company whose anti-theft range has grown into a whole wardrobe of bags. The Heritage is its attempt to make security look like something you'd choose for its own sake, and Pack Hacker, in its July 2026 guide, names it the best anti-theft daypack.
The construction is unusual for the category. Instead of technical nylon, the body is a cotton-poly canvas with suede trim, and the slash-resistant mesh sits inside the front, sides and base. Travelon calls its system "5 point": the slash-resistant body, a slash-resistant strap, locking compartments, a lock-down strap for fixing the bag to a chair, and an RFID-blocking organizer. At 22 litres it holds a day's worth of layers and a laptop without becoming a travel pack.
The canvas is the trade-off. It is heavier than the GO 25L by well over a pound, and canvas and suede ask more of you in the rain than a coated polyester does. What you get in return is the only bag in this group that doesn't immediately read as security equipment, which matters if you'd rather look like you're carrying a bag than guarding one. For a traveller who wants the full anti-theft list in something closer to a heritage rucksack, it is the obvious choice.
Baggallini Securtex Classic Anti-Theft Vacation Backpack
Baggallini built its business on light, organised everyday bags, and its Securtex line adds a four-point anti-theft system to that formula. The Vacation Backpack is the most-backed bag in this guide: Travel + Leisure named it best overall after its hands-on test, and Good Housekeeping lists it as its best compact anti-theft backpack.
It is also small. At 8.5 litres and just over a pound, it is a city daypack for a phone, a passport, a water bottle and a tablet in the back zip pocket, not a laptop bag. Inside, slash-resistant panels line the water-repellent body, the strap is reinforced with a double cable, the zips lock, and the passport pocket and back wallet are RFID-shielded. A grommet lets a charging cable through without leaving a zip open.
Its size is both the point and the limit. If you're sightseeing for a day in a crowded city, it carries exactly what a thief wants and makes it awkward to reach, and its weight means you'll actually take it. If you need to bring a laptop, a jacket or a day's worth of travel, it simply won't fit. Good Housekeeping notes that the slash resistance comes from the product description rather than its own lab, which makes Travel + Leisure's hands-on test the stronger endorsement of the two.
Secure by Design: A Bag That Doesn't Look Like an Anti-Theft Bag
There is a second way to stop the common theft, and it involves no steel at all: put the zips where a stranger's hand can't reach them. Bags built this way protect you mainly by layout, which also means they don't look like they're protecting you from anything.
XD Design Bobby Hero Regular
XD Design's Bobby range is probably the most recognisable anti-theft backpack that doesn't look like one: a smooth, almost seamless shell with no visible zip on the outside. The Hero Regular is the current everyday model; Travel + Leisure's best-for-commuters pick went to its briefcase-style sibling, the Bobby Bizz.
The security is almost entirely architectural. The zips are hidden, the pockets are concealed, and the fabric is cut-resistant. It takes a 15.6-inch laptop, has an RFID pocket and an integrated USB port, and the shell is water-repellent recycled PET. At 16 litres and 1.1 kg, it is a commuter bag sized for a laptop, a charger and lunch.
Two honest notes. Travel + Leisure's testers did cut through the straps of the Bobby Bizz with a box cutter, so read "cut-resistant" here as resistant to the casual slash, not to a determined one. And XD Design sells in euros from its own store; we couldn't read a US price from the brand, so the €129.95 above is the European one. If you live in a city where the risk is a hand in your bag on the metro, its hidden zips do the most useful thing an anti-theft bag can do, quietly.
Small and Convertible
Arden Cove Carmel Convertible Backpack and Crossbody
Arden Cove makes anti-theft bags designed to look like accessories first, and the Carmel has the strongest editorial backing in its range: Travel + Leisure named it the best waterproof anti-theft backpack in its test. It converts between a small backpack and a crossbody, which turns out to be a security feature in its own right.
The anti-theft list is complete for its size. Every exterior zip has locking hardware, a locking strap lets you fix the bag around a chair at a restaurant table, the interior is lined with cut-resistant material, and an RFID-blocking wallet comes with it. The shell is water-resistant nylon closed with water-resistant YKK zips.
At 4.8 litres, though, this is a bag for a phone, a wallet, keys and sunglasses, and $259 is a lot for that capacity. The case for it is the crossbody mode: worn across the front of the body, a bag is far harder to open unnoticed than one on your back, and Smartraveller's advice for Athens is exactly that, small backpacks carried in front. If you want one bag for a city day that becomes harder to rob simply by moving it to your chest, this is the best-looking way to do it in this guide. If you need to carry more than the essentials, it's the wrong bag.
The Budget Pick
MATEIN Mlassic Travel Laptop Backpack
MATEIN is a budget bag brand best known on Amazon, and the Mlassic is the anti-theft backpack most likely to be in your search results at under $50. It also has more editorial backing than its price suggests: Pack Hacker calls it the best budget anti-theft bag, and Good Housekeeping lists it as best value.
Its anti-theft credentials are modest, and worth being clear about. MATEIN's own page lists one security feature, a hidden pocket against the back panel; Pack Hacker adds that the three larger compartments have locking zips, and says plainly that apart from the zips "there aren't any other anti-theft features". There is no slash protection and no anchor strap. What there is, for $39.99, is a 28-litre water-resistant polyester laptop bag with a separate laptop sleeve, and larger 35 and 54-litre versions for a few dollars more, whose laptop compartments open flat for airport screening.
Pack Hacker also calls the materials flimsy, which is the expected trade at this price. Our honest read: if most of your risk is the common theft, a hidden back pocket for the passport and phone does a surprising share of the work, and this bag gets you that for the price of a dinner. If you're heading somewhere governments specifically warn about slashing or snatching, spend the extra eighty dollars on the GO 25L.
RFID Blocking, Honestly
Most bags in this guide have an RFID-blocking pocket, and most competing guides list it as a headline feature. The evidence says it protects you from something that has almost never been seen happening.
The threat it addresses is a thief with a portable card reader brushing past you and charging your contactless card through your bag. UK Finance, which collects fraud data for British banks, told Which? in 2026 that there have been no recorded cases of criminals walking into a public place with a contactless card reader. Its 2026 fraud report puts contactless fraud at £46.8 million for 2025 and lost-and-stolen card fraud at £109.8 million, and attributes that fraud to low-tech methods such as distraction thefts, not to skimming. In other words, the card fraud that happens starts with someone physically taking the card, which is the job of the zip, not the RFID lining.
There are good reasons it rarely happens. Each contactless payment generates a one-time cryptogram, so Visa notes that the data a rogue reader could capture doesn't include the security codes it would need. Modern e-passports, under the ICAO standard, require the reader to know information printed in the passport itself before the chip will talk to it. Consumer Reports calls RFID-blocking products "generally unnecessary", and points out that a card is read from an inch or two away.
The fair caveat is relay attacks, in which criminals extend a card's signal to a distant terminal. The same Which? report describes a suspected case involving cards left in a gym locker, and nobody publishes how often it happens. A shielded pocket would, in principle, stop it. So the right attitude is the one the evidence supports: an RFID pocket costs most bags nothing, and it's harmless to have one. It is not worth paying more for, and it is not a reason to choose one bag over another.
You May Not Need an Anti-Theft Backpack
Go back to how bags actually get stolen and an uncomfortable conclusion follows: for most people in most cities, the job of an anti-theft backpack can be done by a backpack they already own and a few habits. The Home Office's own prevention advice is unglamorous. Don't keep all your valuables in one place, and never leave a bag unattended in public view. Smartraveller's advice for Greece is to carry small backpacks on the front of the body.
In practice, that means four things. Put the passport, the spare card and the phone you're not using somewhere a hand can't reach while the bag is on your back, which is what every back-panel pocket in this guide is for. Close the main zip and clip the pulls together; a small carabiner on two zip pulls does much of what a locking zip does. Wear the bag in front in crowds and on transit. And when you sit down, put a strap under a chair leg or around your knee, because the bag you set down is a bag anyone can carry off.
Anti-theft hardware earns its weight in specific situations: long travel through places governments warn about, dense tourist hotspots, overnight trains and hostels, and days when you'll be carrying everything you can't afford to lose. That is when the EXP45's full kit or the GO 25L's mesh are worth carrying. For an ordinary trip, plenty of regular travel packs come with lockable zips as standard, including several in our men's travel backpacks guide. For the commute, a well-designed bag with hidden or back-facing zips covers the realistic risk.
Locked Zips at Airport Security
A locked backpack is a slower backpack at the security line, and that is the whole issue. Screeners may need to look inside a carry-on, and a bag that takes a combination and a minute to open is a bag that holds up the queue behind you. Unlock the zips before you reach the belt, keep the laptop compartment accessible if your bag opens flat for screening, and re-lock on the other side. The lockable zips on these bags are meant for crowds and hotel rooms, not for the airport conveyor.
Which Size Fits You
Several of the best-known anti-theft bags are marketed to women, mostly because they're small. Size is the better way to choose. The Arden Cove Carmel at 4.8 litres and the Baggallini at 8.5 are city-day bags for essentials; they fit any frame because there's barely anything to fit. The XD Bobby Hero at 16, the Travelon at 22 and the GO 25L at 25 are commuter and day-travel sizes that work for most torsos. The MATEIN and the EXP45 are travel packs, and for those the length of your back matters more than the label on the hang-tag; the EXP45's padded hip belt is there to carry real weight on the hips.
What an Anti-Theft Backpack Actually Comes Down To
Strip away the steel mesh and the marketing and the decision reduces to one question: which theft are you actually trying to stop? For most people, most of the time, it's a quiet hand in an open zip, and the best defence is a bag whose zips are hidden, locked or facing your back, worn in front when it's crowded and never set down unattended. For a smaller number of trips, to the specific places where slashing and snatching are documented, steel mesh and cut-resistant straps start to earn their weight.
The gap in this category is the one we keep finding across backpacks: almost every anti-theft bag is either built like security equipment or built like a cheap laptop bag with a hidden pocket. Very few are simply good backpacks, well made and good-looking, that happen to be hard to open without you noticing. The thief who matters most isn't carrying a knife. They're waiting for you to make it easy, and the best anti-theft feature is a bag designed so that you don't.
