In this work, a compact, long read range, and an efficient spiral loop structure coupled tag antenna is proposed for UHF-RFID applications. Meandered line element is inductively coupled to spiral loop for matching its input impedance to Higgs-4 chip. Equivalent circuit of antenna is extracted to analyze its working mechanism in the operating band. Experimental characterization validates the performance of proposed tag antenna in free space and on cardboard sheet in terms of read range, tag sensitivity, and differential radar cross section with an EIRP of 3.28 W. The measured radiation pattern of the tag is found to be omnidirectional in H plane and figure of eight in E plane. The tag's read range is measured on objects like fiber, wood, plastic, and glass in outdoor scenario to study its environment tolerance. The tag antenna has volumetric size of 1736 mm 3 and read range of 13.6 m in US RFID band. K E Y W O R D S inductive loop feed, radar cross section (ΔRCS), read range, tag sensitivity, UHF (ultrahigh frequency) radio frequency identification (RFID) tag antenna