Is 3% battery degradation in a month normal?

Over the course of a month, the battery has degraded by 3%, is this normal or is it a problem with the device (from 100% to 97%), the device is currently 6 months old

iPhone 13

Posted on Dec 12, 2025 12:02 PM

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Posted on Dec 13, 2025 8:09 AM

MyroslavKravchuk wrote:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/4538fc63-36db-49ee-8355-506d6d6f03a3
The phone was purchased on July 29th and comes with a warranty.

The point being that the phone was discontinued September 9th, 2024 after first being sold in 2021. Natural aging of the battery occurs over time and that phone had been sitting somewhere for possibly over a year before being sold to you.


Combine that with the average battery health drop of the iPhone 13 being 1% per month, since that battery is designed to last 500 charge cycles. When you take both those into consideration seeing a 3% drop the phone being activated 6 months is actually better than most expectations. The battery drop is never linear, meaning you may see where some months will not drop at all and other months will drop more. A drop in 1 month is not a prediction of the drop you see the next month.


As far as your Battery Health, you are all good and just need to enjoy your phone. The questions about the region of your device are relevant if service is ever needed and your options may be limited, but you are not in need of service and there really is nothing you can do about that at this point.

13 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 13, 2025 8:09 AM in response to MyroslavKravchuk

MyroslavKravchuk wrote:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/4538fc63-36db-49ee-8355-506d6d6f03a3
The phone was purchased on July 29th and comes with a warranty.

The point being that the phone was discontinued September 9th, 2024 after first being sold in 2021. Natural aging of the battery occurs over time and that phone had been sitting somewhere for possibly over a year before being sold to you.


Combine that with the average battery health drop of the iPhone 13 being 1% per month, since that battery is designed to last 500 charge cycles. When you take both those into consideration seeing a 3% drop the phone being activated 6 months is actually better than most expectations. The battery drop is never linear, meaning you may see where some months will not drop at all and other months will drop more. A drop in 1 month is not a prediction of the drop you see the next month.


As far as your Battery Health, you are all good and just need to enjoy your phone. The questions about the region of your device are relevant if service is ever needed and your options may be limited, but you are not in need of service and there really is nothing you can do about that at this point.

Dec 13, 2025 8:27 AM in response to MyroslavKravchuk

The phone was purchased on July 29th


The iPhone 13 was discontinued in September 2024. That being the case....IF....your phone was one of the last products off the production line, your phone sat on a shelf in a warehouse somewhere for about 14-15 months. Or course, depending on when your phone was actually manufactured, it might really be much older than 14-15 months.


That is a very long time for a battery to remain idle. Whether or not that very long period of sitting idle has affected the battery is open to question.


I don't think you will know much about how the battery will perform long term until you have used the phone for 3-4 months.

Is 3% battery degradation in a month normal?

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