How Much Does Scuba Gear Weigh? Item by Item, Tank and Travel

How heavy is scuba gear? Weight of each item

The table gives the weight of scuba gear item by item for a single-tank recreational kit, dry and out of the water. Figures come from the maker's spec sheet wherever the maker publishes one. The mask and fin makers we checked do not list weights on their own pages, so those rows use the specs a European dealer lists for each model, and the wetsuit rows are our estimate, explained in the wetsuit section below. Tank figures match our aluminium vs steel tank chart.

Size changes the answer. A large BCD or fin weighs more than a small one, which is why several rows give a range rather than one number.

How much does a full scuba kit weigh on land?

Add up the rows and a full kit for an 80 kg diver comes to about 31-39 kg (68-86 lb), before the tank valve, boots and gauge. The tank and the lead make up 23-27 kg of that. The two kits below show the arithmetic, both with a full aluminium 80 in the sea.

The lead is PADI's first guess: 5% of body weight in a 3 mm suit or 10% in a 5-7 mm suit, plus 2 kg for an aluminium 80 in the sea. The real figure comes from an in-water check, covered in our guide to how much weight you need. The suit figures are ceilings, so a real kit usually comes in a little lighter.

• Warm-water kit, about 31.0 kg: mask 0.19 kg, full-foot fins 1.5 kg, 3 mm suit up to 2.2 kg, travel BCD 2.9 kg, DIN regulator 0.73 kg, octopus 0.285 kg and computer 0.12 kg make 7.9 kg. Add 17.1 kg of tank and 6 kg of lead.
• Cool-water kit, about 38.8 kg: mask 0.20 kg, open-heel fins 2.54 kg, 7 mm suit up to 3.8 kg, BCD with weight pockets 3.9 kg, yoke regulator 0.90 kg, octopus 0.285 kg and computer 0.12 kg make 11.7 kg. Add 17.1 kg of tank and 10 kg of lead.

How heavy is a scuba tank?

Scuba tank weight is the biggest single number in the kit. A Luxfer aluminium 80 weighs 14.3 kg (31.5 lb) empty without its valve. The air in it adds about 2.8 kg when full, so you lift about 17.1 kg (37.7 lb) plus the valve. Neither spec sheet lists the valve, so these are the cylinder alone, and the air weights are worked out from the buoyancy change each sheet prints, as in our tank comparison.

A steel Faber HP100 weighs a little more: 15.6 kg (34.0 lb) empty and about 19.3 kg full, again without the valve, for about 31% more air. In the water the order reverses. With its valve, the full AL80 is only 0.80 kg negative in sea water and 1.54 kg positive at 35 bar, while the HP100 is 3.81 kg negative full and still 0.15 kg negative empty.

That is why a switch to steel saves about 2 kg of lead, and why a full tank plus its lead comes to almost the same load either way: 27.1 kg with the aluminium 80 and 27.3 kg with the HP100.

How heavy are wetsuits and drysuits?

A dry 5 mm full wetsuit weighs roughly 1.3-2.8 kg, and a 7 mm suit up to about 3.8 kg. The wetsuit makers we checked do not publish a weight, so we worked it out from lab data. A 2025 study in Polymers measured 33 diving neoprene samples: the 3 mm samples weighed 687-1,148 g per square metre, the 5 mm ones 1,093-1,459 g and the 7 mm ones 1,405-1,979 g.

A UK study of adult cancer patients put the average man's body surface at 1.91 m² and a woman's at 1.71 m². A full suit covers less than that, because hands, feet and head stay out, so neoprene for 1.91 m² gives a ceiling for an average-size man: about 2.2 kg at 3 mm, 2.8 kg at 5 mm and 3.8 kg at 7 mm. Zips and knee pads add a little, while a smaller suit weighs less.

Real suits sit under that ceiling. Wetsuit Wearhouse weighed a Rip Curl 5/3 mm suit at 2.8 lb (1.3 kg) dry and says most wetsuits weigh 2-4 lb (0.9-1.8 kg) dry, depending on size and thickness.

A trilaminate drysuit weighs about as much as a thick wetsuit. A review in Scuba Diver magazine gives 3.4 kg for a BARE X-Mission including seals and boots, and Santi lists its E.Lite Plus at 3.9 kg in size L. The undersuit comes on top, and so does lead: PADI's starting point in a drysuit is 15% of body weight or more, against 10% in a 5-7 mm wetsuit.

Scuba gear weight for travel and airline baggage

Tanks and lead make up about 70-75% of the kit's weight, and they are often part of the dive price at the destination. Aquarius Diving Club in Hurghada, for example, lists guide, 12 L tanks and weights as included. That leaves the 7.9-11.7 kg of personal gear above, plus the bag.

Flying with a tank is restricted anyway. Alert Diver Europe explains that a pressurised scuba tank cannot go on a plane: it has to travel empty with the valve taken off, and some airlines refuse tanks altogether.

Airline rules differ, so here is one example rather than a general number. The Lufthansa Group (Lufthansa, Austrian, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings and SWISS) lists scuba gear as sports equipment: up to two bags, one with an empty tank and one with accessories such as fins, wetsuit, BCD and mask, each up to 200 cm in width plus height plus depth. Gear over your free allowance is charged at the sports equipment rate, up to 32 kg per bag, and the sheet says the rules are subject to change. Work out your own trip this way:

• Pack the bag with everything dry and weigh it at home on a luggage scale.
• Read the checked bag weight on your fare, then the airline's sports equipment page, where some carriers list dive gear as its own category.
• Price the options side by side: a second bag, the sports equipment fee, or renting the bulky items where you dive. Our rent or buy guide lists rental prices at several dive centres.

How to cut the weight of a dive bag

The BCD, the fins and the wetsuit are the items worth working on. Each swap below uses figures from the table.

• Use a travel BCD setup. The Scubapro Hydros Pro drops from 3.9 kg to 2.9 kg when you swap its weight-system waist strap for the travel strap, and Mares lists its XR-Rec Trim wing with a 3 mm aluminium plate at 2.8 kg. Check the lift as well: our first BCD guide explains why a lighter model may give some up.
• Take full-foot fins to warm water. A pair of Seac F-100 Pro weighs about 1.5 kg against 2.0-2.5 kg for Apeks RK3 open-heels, and full-foot fins need no boots.
• Rent the thick wetsuit. A 7 mm suit can weigh up to about 3.8 kg dry, and it holds water on the way home.
• Pick the DIN version if your regulator comes in both. The Mikron weighs 730 g in DIN and 900 g in yoke with its hose, but pack DIN only if the dive centre's valves take it; our tank comparison covers the two fittings.
• Keep the small items. Mask and computer together weigh about 0.3 kg, and a mask that fits is worth more than the grams.

Why your gear weighs more after the dive

Neoprene and padding hold water, so the bag home is heavier than the bag out unless the gear dries first. The Rip Curl 5/3 mm suit that Wetsuit Wearhouse weighed went from 2.8 lb (1.3 kg) dry to 6 lb (2.7 kg) soaking wet, and the retailer puts most wetsuits at 5-8 lb (2.3-3.6 kg) wet.

BCDs hold water in the padding and inside the bladder. Scubapro sells the gel harness of the Hydros Pro on lower water retention and a lower post-dive weight, without giving a figure. Its manual also has you rinse the bladder with fresh water and drain it out through the oral valve, which is the step that lets a BCD dry.

Hang the suit and BCD the day before you fly and drain the bladder. In the test above, the wet suit alone carried about 1.4 kg of water.