Everyday Carry List | 25 EDC Essentials

Everyday Carry gear organized on concrete.

This is a survival-focused everyday carry list with an accompanying guide and EDC checklist.

BY SEAN GOLD, UPDATED:

We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Disclosure»

Everyday carry encompasses all the items you carry on your person every day. It is less of a kit and more of a daily loadout. EDC (Everyday Carry) is popular far beyond prepping and survival- many people try to optimize what they carry with them for every single day of their lives. It can include pouches, multi-tools, and CCW, or just be your keys and wallet.

EDC also includes the clothes you choose to wear. Versatility, weight, size, and functionality are all important for EDC gear.

Contents (Jump to a Section)

Everyday Carry Essentials

The essential tools that you carry with you every day are the main components of EDC and will provide you with the most versatility and functionality. These tools don’t take up much room and should be able to fit in your pocket or around your person without any additional pouches, bags, or backpacks.

“Essential” means high priority in this case, meaning that you should strongly consider adding these to the gear you already carry. Odds are, you probably have many of these as part of your existing EDC loadout, whether you know it or not!

Personal Items

When you are out and about, you’ll rely on your tech tools to navigate, communicate, and more. While your smartphone is an obvious workhorse, having redundancies in place is worth considering. We’ll get into more analog backups as well later on in our ‘suggested items’ section.

Power & Energy

Backup tools like flashlights are important, and advancements in energy storage make carrying battery backups easier and more lightweight than ever before. Be able to charge all of your essential gear without a visit home.

EDC Tools

When people discuss everyday carry, most people envision the knife and the multitool. Most belt-mount EDC sheaths include dedicated spots for these tools, but they can also be easy enough to carry in your pockets, keychain, or clipped.

OKC Rat folding knife and Gerber Dime multitool laying on concrete.
Most knives and multitools vary by personal preference – go larger or lighter if you want. (Credit: Sean Gold)

Where are the Firearms? A concealed carry weapon is practical for everyday carry, but they aren’t for everyone. We discuss these and other self-defense options in our suggested items section rather than ‘essential gear’.

Survival Gear

When we talk about survival gear, we’re talking about items that keep you alive, according to the survival rule of 3. Water, food, and fire cover a lot of bases, and often gear related to these sections gets expanded quickly when you grow your survival-focused EDC loadout.

A Vargo Para-bottle, chocolate Clif Bar, and a BIC lighter in a flamenest case sitting on a black table covered in snow.
Survival EDC essentials are simple, but get expanded in our suggested and situation-specific sections. (Credit: Sean Gold)

First Aid + Hygiene

Whether you bandage a small scrape or keep a small pill container of the medicine you depend on to live, first aid and medical supplies are ever-important. In many situations, having hygiene supplies on hand will help- even if it’s not a disaster.

  • Mini First Aid Kit: A small, portable First Aid Kit.
  • Prescription Medication: Jase Case [Top pick from our emergency prescription review] – Don’t get caught on the go without your meds! Get emergency prescriptions for critical medications, including EpiPens.
  • Feminine Hygiene Supplies: Keep supplies nearby.

Everyday Clothing

Clothing goes beyond fashion with everyday utility. We’ve been on the hunt for the best survival clothes for a while, and we update our reviews at least annually as we test more gear and new clothes become available.

Still, what you wear is a very personal choice. Having the bases covered is more important than matching our gear recommendations completely. Just because we found these to be the best for a huge range of survival situations doesn’t make them specifically the best for you and your lifestyle.

Suggested Items

This gear may not be essential by definition, but adding any of these to your EDC will improve your loadout’s versatility for even more situations. One of the problems with including too much gear, though, is that you run out of places to store it.

Sean's Example Pouch EDC suggested gear for everyday carry
Adding a pouch can help you carry a lot more suggested EDC gear. (Credit: Sean Gold)

This is where survival-specific clothing and EDC pouches can come in handy. Many people use these to stay organized and just to carry more gear.

Situation-Specific Supplies

Essentials and suggested additions have been covered, so this is the area where you will find everything else that could be useful to have on you every day. These extra supplies will help you in very specific situations, are less versatile, and may take up a lot of space.

Sean's Large Backpack EDC optional gear for everyday carry
My backpack EDC loadout lets me carry the essentials and more. (Credit: Sean Gold)

Even still, they could be the difference makers in an emergency, so it could pay off to consider adding these.

Everyday Carry Checklist

A perfect EDC loadout doesn’t exist- what is right for you depends on your situation and risk tolerance. That said, we have as close to perfect of a starting point for you: our definitive EDC checklist.

Our checklist is available as both a PDF download and as a Google Sheets/Excel file where you can check off items yourself, and even add and subtract items from the checklist.

Everyday Carry Checklist.

Printable PDF Checklist

If you are looking for the simplest way to print and use the checklist above, download our PDF version. It is two pages long on 8.5″ x 11″ paper. This EDC PDF makes gathering and tracking your EDC gear extremely easy. Once you open the everyday carry PDF checklist in your browser, you can either print it directly or save it through your browser.

Printable PDF Checklist

Excel / Google Sheets Checklist

If you are looking for a comprehensive way to track your EDC loadout, open our Excel / Google Sheets version. The sheet is shareable, and you just need to copy it to your own Google Sheets account or download it to Excel to edit it. We also keep the reviews for each category linked to simplify shopping for any equipment you may find yourself missing.

If you are looking to edit the checklist, you’ll need to open the file so you can copy and paste the contents into your own sheet. You can also select “Make a Copy” in the File menu- our original file cannot be edited.

Excel / Sheets Checklist

EDC FAQs

If you haven’t heard of EDC before, it can be a strange concept to label the supplies and resources you have with you every day. But once you start thinking about these intentionally, everyday preparedness just makes sense.

What is Everyday Carry (EDC)?

Everyday Carry (also abbreviated ‘EDC’) refers to the gear people carry with them daily to be prepared for a huge range of situations. These ‘loadouts’ typically include essential tools, gear, supplies, and clothing that can help in survival scenarios or just everyday tasks.

How do I choose the right EDC gear for myself?

Your EDC gear selection should depend on your lifestyle, environment, personal preference, and budget. While we’ve given a comprehensive list, EDCs rarely duplicate each other since we all have different things going on in our lives. Look for common needs to determine what to invest in and consider factors as we do in our reviews.

Is there a perfect EDC loadout?

No, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to EDC since everyone has different needs and circumstances. What works perfectly for one person would not work ‘perfectly’ for the next, as people have different lives and different risks.

The Next Step

EDC adds tons of versatile functionality to your everyday life. You’ll find yourself using many of the tools you added very often. If you add more tools beyond the essentials, you may find your loadout getting closer to a get home bag or bug out bag (depending on your emergency plan).

That is fine, as long as you are fine with carrying around extra gear- both of those mobile survival kits represent the pinnacle of preparedness on the go.

Sean's Bug out Bag contents laid out and displayed on concrete floor.

If you plan to evacuate for most situations, check out the bug out bag list to help accomplish that.

Get home bag contents spread out and organized on concrete floor.

If you are looking to make it home to your in-place preparedness supplies no matter what, this get home bag list is what you are looking for.

See more of our expert-written guides, resources, and reviews in your search results – add TruePrepper as a preferred source.

Prepping Your Way

No judgement and no imperatives. Prepare the way you want to with the trusted source millions of modern preppers have relied on.

Our newsletter fires out every Monday where you can expect:
  • Practical prepping guides and tips
  • Thorough survival gear reviews
  • Noticeably absent spam and popups
  • < 0.4% of people unsubscribe
Thanks for subscribing, supporting our cause, and improving your own resilience.
Everyday carry kit.
(Credit: Sean Gold)