Tortuosity values of porous battery electrodes determined using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in symmetric cells with a non-intercalating electrolyte are typically higher than those values based on numerical analysis of 3D tomographic reconstructions. The electrochemical approach assumes that the electronic resistance in the porous coating is negligible and that the tortuosity of the porous electrode can be calculated from the ionic resistance determined by fitting a transmission line equivalent circuit model to the experimental data. In this work, we validate the assumptions behind the electrochemical approach. First, we experimentally and theoretically investigate the influence of the electronic resistance of the porous electrode on the extracted ionic resistances using a general transmission line model, and provide a convenient method to determine whether the electronic resistance is sufficiently low for the model to be correctly applied. Second, using a macroscopic setup with known tortuosity, we prove that the ionic resistance quantified by the transmission line model indeed yields the true tortuosity of a porous medium. Based on our findings, we analyze the tortuosities of porous electrodes using both X-ray tomography and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy on electrodes from the same coating and conclude that the distribution of the polymeric binder phase, which is not imaged in most tomographic experiments, is a key reason for the underestimated tortuosity values calculated from 3D reconstructions of electrode microstructures. In commercially relevant lithium ion battery cells operating at high currents or low temperatures and/or cells with thick and low porosity electrodes (i.e., electrodes with high areal capacity and high volumetric energy density), the ionic transport in the electrolyte throughout the thickness of the porous electrode becomes limiting, leading to the buildup of excessive electrolyte concentration gradients across the thickness of the electrode. Concentration gradients not only lead to increased overpotentials and thus lower accessible capacities, but also play an important role in battery aging caused by lithium plating reactions at the graphite anode/separator interface.1 Along with the intrinsic transport parameters of the liquid electrolyte, the morphological properties of a porous electrode, quantified by the parameters porosity and tortuosity, are key to understanding the buildup of concentration gradients across the electrode thickness and the resulting performance limitations of porous electrodes.In the battery community, there are currently two commonly used approaches to obtain values for the tortuosity of porous electrodes; however, they yield different results. One is based on numerical diffusion simulations on 3D reconstructions of the electrode obtained using X-ray (XTM) or focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB SEM) tomography.2,3 The other approach is based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements of the electrodes in a symme...