A metal-compatible IC tag that operates on metal objects is presented. It consists of an antenna coil with a thin magnetic sheet core and a bottom conductive sheet to isolate the antenna coil from the electromagnetic influence of the metal object to which the tag is attached. The direction of communication to/from a reader/writer is in the plane of the sheet core and parallel to the axis of the solenoidal antenna coil. Magnetic sheet core materials were developed and tested for 125-kHz and 13.56-MHz IC tags. The experimental results revealed that the operating range remained unchanged for the 13.56-MHz IC tag and that it was reduced by 15% for the 125-kHz tag when the tags were directly placed on a 3-mm-thick iron plate.