Index / CR2016

CR2016 battery equivalent: what to use instead

CR2016 lithium battery — 3 V, 20 x 1.6 mm. CR2016 batteries of any brand are this same cell, and so is a pack sold as a DL2016 battery or an ECR2016 battery. Nothing else in the data shares its size. Battery equivalent chart for every other code.

What fits the compartment, and what does not

Candidates for a CR2016 battery replacement, one row each. Fit answers whether it enters the compartment. Voltage answers whether the circuit will notice. A cell that fits is not always a safe substitute.

Nothing Energizer still lists is the same depth. The 3 options below share the diameter and run 1.2 to 3.2 mm against this cell's 1.6, and some are shallower and some deeper, so read the depth column: short of this cell is a contact problem, past it is a cover problem.

Also stamped 5000LC, ULT2016, EVR2016, ULTIMATE CR2016

Same cell, other names on the package

CR2016 answers to 3 markings outside the standard: DL2016, ECR2016 and KCR2016. They are retail house numbers, and no standards body stands behind any of them, which is why none is printed under Also stamped above.

The maker's own catalog carries 4 product lines under it. The digits themselves are a measurement: CR2016 reads back as the size on the caliper. A pack sold as a plain 2016 battery names only that size; the C in front is the chemistry, lithium manganese dioxide.

• DL2016 — a retail trade marking, not an IEC designation; a DL2016 battery equivalent is whatever replaces CR2016.
• ECR2016 — a retail trade marking, not an IEC designation; an ECR2016 battery equivalent is whatever replaces CR2016.
• KCR2016 — a retail trade marking, not an IEC designation.
• 5000LC — a manufacturer part number for CR2016, not a standard designation.
• ULT2016 — a manufacturer part number for CR2016, not a standard designation.
• EVR2016 — a manufacturer part number for CR2016, not a standard designation.

The cell that differs only in depth

The code says the size, so the cells that get confused with CR2016 are the ones that keep its diameter and change its depth. 3 cells share this diameter at depths from 1.2 to 3.2 mm, and every one of them enters the same opening.

• CR2012 — same diameter, 1.2 mm tall against this cell's 1.6: 0.4 mm shallower, which the standard writes into both codes.
• CR2025 — same diameter, 2.5 mm tall against this cell's 1.6: 0.9 mm deeper, which the standard writes into both codes.
• CR2032 — same diameter, 3.2 mm tall against this cell's 1.6: 1.6 mm deeper, which the standard writes into both codes.
• On a scale the difference shows before it shows on a caliper: this one weighs 1.9 g.

Side by side: CR2016 vs CR2032, CR2016 vs CR2025.

Capacity is printed only on the Ultimate CR2016 data sheet; the other 3 records behind this page print none, so treat it as that line's figure rather than every CR2016's.

Capacity tracks depth almost exactly here

Depth buys capacity here at a steady rate. This cell holds 100 mAh in 1.6 mm and CR2025 holds 170 in 2.5 mm, which is the same 62.5 mAh per millimeter of depth: the chemistry fills the shell evenly and the only variable is how much shell there is.

What a lithium coin is asked to hold

A lithium coin 20 mm across holds 3 V with almost no self-discharge, which is why sockets that must remember something for years are cut for this shape. Published capacity 100 mAh. In a memory-backup socket that is measured in years rather than hours; under a camera or a transmitter load it is measured in shots.

Same diameter, other depths: CR2012, CR2025 and CR2032. They are one voltage, 3 V; depth is the only thing that changes. 3 cells measure close enough to compare against it in the Energizer data this site reads, and 3 of them are still listed. The nearest is CR2012: it enters and sits lower and runs 3 V, same volts. The maker still lists it, under 4 product lines: CR2016, EVR2016, ULT2016 and Ultimate CR2016.

• Energizer files it for Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America, which is where the part is sold rather than where the cell will work.

Drawn to scale

Every published figure

11 figures are published, and one is not: impedance. The row is absent rather than estimated. The designation encodes 20 mm by 1.6 mm, a second and independent check on the size rows.

2 rows in the table are not the maker's but ours: stored energy and energy per cubic centimeter. Everything else is reproduced without change.

What it loses standing still

CR2016 is one of the few parts the maker publishes a shelf-loss figure for at all: about 1% per year, beside 4 other published figures.

The part occupies 0.5 cubic centimeters and weighs 1.9 g. Capacity and voltage together put 300 milliwatt-hours in that space. Energizer files it for Asia Pacific, Europe and Latin America.

Cutoff voltage

2 V. The published capacity is counted down to this voltage; a device that quits higher up sees less than the whole figure.

Self-discharge

About 1% per year on the shelf, which is the figure that decides how a spare stored in a drawer behaves.

The code read as a measurement

CR2016 encodes 20 mm across and 1.6 mm tall, and the published dimensions agree exactly. On a figure with one source that is the only independent check there is.

Mass against volume

1.9 g filling 0.5 cubic centimeters. When the printing has worn off, a kitchen scale separates two cells of one envelope faster than a caliper does.

Where the part is filed

Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America. That is a statement about the maker's distribution and not about where the cell works.

Is that a lot of energy?

Nothing else measured shares this shell, so the comparison has to go site-wide: 300 milliwatt-hours in 0.5 cubic centimeters is 600 mWh per cc, denser than 95% of every cell measured here. Density is ours: the maker publishes capacity and volume and never divides one by the other.

More energy per cubic centimeter than most

CR2016 packs more into its volume than most of what is measured here: 600 milliwatt-hours per cubic centimeter, above 95 percent of the corpus.

3 of those ones are still listed. Its 600 milliwatt-hours per cubic centimeter sit above 95 percent of everything here that publishes both a capacity and a volume. 16 of the 79 coins share its 3 V exactly.

• SR43 — the next step down by volume: 0.44 cubic centimeters against this cell's 0.5.
• LR44 — the next step up: 0.57 cubic centimeters, 114% of this one.
• CR2025 — 20 x 2.5 mm, 3 V, lithium.
• CR2032 — 20 x 3.2 mm, 3 V, lithium.

What this page cannot tell you

2 of the 7 fields this site reads are empty for CR2016: impedance and operating temperature. Everything computed from them is absent from this page rather than estimated.

The blanks are the same in all 4 records behind this designation, so they are the catalog's silence and not a merge losing a value. What is not missing is the envelope: 20 x 1.6 mm, published and checked against the designation itself.

• No impedance — so this page cannot tell you whether the cell can drive a pulse, which is the whole question in a watch or a sensor.
• No operating temperature — so this page cannot tell you whether the maker claims anything at all below freezing.

Before you swap anything

Everything here is computed from published dimensions and nominal voltages. That answers whether a cell enters the compartment and whether the voltage matches on paper. It does not answer what your device does with the difference, and it cannot: a cell that fits can still be the wrong cell.

One more limit, and it is the biggest. This site reads a single manufacturer’s catalog. When a page says a designation is not listed, that means Energizer no longer offers a part under it — not that nobody makes the cell. Other makers may still sell it, and for common sizes they usually do.

A voltage difference is one relation between two cells, and this page prints it from the cell it is about — in every table on the page, including the one listing cells no longer made. A figure always belongs to the cell whose voltage is printed beside it: a cell that runs lower than this one carries a minus here, one that runs higher carries a plus, and two cells at the same nominal voltage carry zero. Meet the same pair on the other cell’s page and the sign is the other one, with the figure taken against that cell instead of this one; where the two run at the same voltage, both pages print zero. The class beside the figure is not read off that figure directly. It is decided on the gap itself, taken against the higher of the two nominal voltages, so one pair of cells gets one class whichever page you meet it on: counted from this side the boundary of the class that still runs falls at 20.0% below and 25.0% above, which is the same gap divided once by the larger nominal and once by the smaller. What genuinely differs between the two directions is the consequence, and the words carry it: a cell that runs low makes a calibrated instrument read below true, and a cell that runs high makes it read above.

3 things this site cannot see. Whether the contacts reach a shorter cell. Whether the device was calibrated for a chemistry that holds its voltage flat, which silver oxide does and alkaline does not. Whether the equipment tolerates the higher current a different chemistry can deliver. Rechargeable cells are never a drop-in for primary cells regardless of size.

Cells measured next to this one

Nothing in the Energizer data on this site shares this exact size. The 3 cells below have the same diameter and a different depth — 1.2 to 3.2 mm against this cell's 1.6 — which is a near miss rather than an alternative.

• CR2012 — 20 x 1.2 mm, 3 V
• CR2025 — 20 x 2.5 mm, 3 V
• CR2032 — 20 x 3.2 mm, 3 V

Where these numbers come from

Dimensions, voltages, chemistries and capacities are published by the manufacturer and reproduced without change. Everything else on the page is ours, computed from those figures: whether one cell fits where another sat, how far apart their voltages are, stored energy and energy per cubic centimeter, the rank within a shell, and the check of the designation against the measured size.

Fit is decided within 0.3 mm on every axis, which is the order of a contact spring's travel. Voltage classes are decided by consequence, not by roundness, and they are decided on the gap between two nominal voltages taken against the higher of the two: 2.0% or less of it is the same working voltage, 6.0% starts to matter to a calibrated instrument, and past 20.0% it is a different class altogether. Measuring the gap against the higher figure is what makes the verdict the same from either cell’s page, while the printed percentage stays counted from the cell you are reading about. Cells with identical stored energy share a rank instead of being ordered arbitrarily.

Ranking uses capacity times nominal voltage, because capacity alone is not comparable across chemistries: 150 mAh at 3 V is twice the energy of 150 mAh at 1.5 V. Neighbors are chosen by measurement and never alphabetically, because two cells filed next to each other by name usually have nothing in common. A blank in any table means the maker publishes no figure, which is not the same as zero.

Source: Energizer technical data, retrieved 1 September 2026.

The records behind this page

CR2016 is not one catalog entry. 4 records carry this designation, 4 of them with a technical data sheet, and each is numbered below with a direct link to the sheet the figures came from.

1. [1] Energizer catalog record 2360, listed as Ultimate CR2016, active in the snapshot. Technical data sheet: ultimatecr2016eu0920.pdf.
2. [2] Energizer catalog record 3696, active in the snapshot. Technical data sheet: 2016GL0626.pdf.
3. [3] Energizer catalog record 3705, listed as ULT2016, active in the snapshot. Technical data sheet: ULT2016GL0626.pdf.
4. [4] Energizer catalog record 3714, listed as EVR2016, active in the snapshot. Technical data sheet: EVR2016GL0626.pdf.

Every figure above is reproduced from those records without change; the comparisons are ours and are described on the method page. Snapshot: Energizer technical data, retrieved 1 September 2026.

Putting this on a forum or a repair page? The same answer without the site around it — fit, voltage, chemistry and the limits that go with them — is at /embed/cr2016/. It loads nothing from anywhere else. Paste this:

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