The short answer (prices checked 22 October 2026)
- Cheapest per use: the 230-piece pack at £8.49 works out at 3.7p a liner, or £7.68 a year if you air fry four times a week.
- Cheapest to try: Roe Tenpo at £3.99 for 100, which is 4.0p a use and the lowest entry price of the six.
- The paper spread is narrow. From 3.7p to 5.8p a use, a £4.40 difference over a year of cooking.
- A £3.00 silicone liner pays for itself against the cheapest paper after 81 uses, so about five months at four cooks a week.
- Listing audit, 22 October 2026: 19 of the first 20 search results call themselves food grade and none of the 20 names the standard, test or regulation behind it.
Air fryer liners are having a moment on Amazon UK. On 22 October 2026 two of them sat inside the Home & Kitchen top 30 at once, the Roe Tenpo 100-pack at number 13 and the Stone TH 120-pack at number 24. That is a cluster rather than a single fluke chart entry, and it is the kind of signal worth taking seriously: a consumable that people are buying over and over, not a one-off gadget purchase.
The buying question is simple to state. Paper liners are cheap and you throw them away. Silicone liners cost more and you wash them. Where does one stop being cheaper than the other? And since every listing on the first page of results says the words food grade, what does that phrase actually commit the seller to in Great Britain? The second question turned out to have a clearer answer than we expected, and it is not the answer the listings imply.
Prices in this table come from Amazon and are refreshed at least once a day, with the date of the last update under the table. The cost-per-use and running-cost figures on this page use prices Look Into read on 22 October 2026, so they can differ from today's price.
As an Amazon Associate, Look Into earns from qualifying purchases. Product prices and availability are accurate as of 22 October 2026 and are subject to change.
Prices and specs last checked by Look Into on 22 October 2026 · next check 17 December 2026 · how we picked
Air fryer liners sit outside every specific food contact rule in GB law
Food contact materials in England are enforced through the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (England) Regulations 2012. Read the instrument and you find it builds specific controls for six kinds of material, each with its own Part: plastics in Part 6, which brings in retained Regulation 10/2011 with its migration limits; ceramics in Part 4; regenerated cellulose film in Part 5; active and intelligent materials in Part 3; the epoxy derivatives BADGE, BFDGE and NOGE in Part 7; vinyl chloride in Part 8.
Paper and board appear in none of them. Neither does silicone rubber. Both kinds of air fryer liner on sale in the UK fall outside every specific measure the 2012 Regulations create.
What covers them instead is the general requirement in Article 3 of retained Regulation 1935/2004. It says materials must be made under good manufacturing practice so that, in its words, "under normal or foreseeable conditions of use, they do not transfer their constituents to food" in quantities that could endanger health, change the composition of the food unacceptably, or spoil its taste, smell or appearance. Article 3 also carries a second limb that matters here: "The labelling, advertising and presentation of a material or article shall not mislead the consumers."
Two things follow, and we have not found a UK roundup that states either.
The first concerns that phrase food grade. On a plastic food box it points somewhere specific, because Regulation 10/2011 sets out an authorised substance list and migration limits, and the 2012 Regulations make a written declaration of compliance enforceable for plastics, ceramics and regenerated cellulose film. For a paper liner there is no equivalent list to point at and no equivalent declaration required at retail. The phrase rests on the maker saying so.
The second concerns heat. Article 3 makes the safety test conditional on normal or foreseeable conditions of use, and in an air fryer the condition that varies most is temperature. Domestic air fryers routinely run to 200C and above. So the temperature a liner is rated for is the number that connects the product to the legal test. It is also, as the audit below shows, the number most listings leave out.
How we picked these
We read the first 20 unsponsored results on amazon.co.uk for the term air fryer liners on 22 October 2026, then opened every product page and recorded what each listing states in its own copy. From that set we took six with distinct jobs, covering both the disposable and the reusable side, and ranked them on cost per use rather than on pack size, because a big pack at a high unit price is not a bargain. Cost per use is the pack price divided by the number of liners in it. The yearly figures assume four air fryer sessions a week, which is 208 uses.
Look Into has not handled these products: every figure comes from the maker, the listing or a named source, read on the date shown. Prices are the Amazon UK buy box read on 22 October 2026 and they move.
At a glance
| Liner | Type | Pack | Price 22 Oct | Cost per use | Max temp stated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upgraded 230-piece | Paper | 230 | £8.49 | 3.7p | 232C |
| Roe Tenpo | Paper | 100 | £3.99 | 4.0p | 230C |
| FIFHEN | Paper | 150 | £7.99 | 5.3p | 230C |
| Stone TH | Paper | 120 | £6.97 | 5.8p | None stated |
| Silicone 3-pack | Silicone | 3 | £8.99 | £3.00 each, 81-use payback | None stated |
| Silicone for Ninja Dual | Silicone | 2 | £8.99 | £4.50 each, 122-use payback | None stated |
The six we would buy
Upgraded 230-piece air fryer liners
£8.49 on 22 October 2026 · 230 liners · 3.7p a use · £7.68 a year at four cooks a week
The cheapest liner in the set once you divide the price by what is in the box, and the only pick of the six whose listing puts its temperature rating at 232C rather than the usual 230C. The 14cm by 4.5cm size quoted in the copy is the square-ish shape that suits a single-drawer basket.
The catch: 230 sheets is a lot of commitment to one size. If your air fryer has two drawers of different shapes, or you are not yet sure liners suit the way you cook, you are buying four years of a product you have never used.
Roe Tenpo air fryer liners, 100 pieces
£3.99 on 22 October 2026 · 100 liners · 4.0p a use · £8.30 a year at four cooks a week
Number 13 in the whole Home & Kitchen chart on the day we looked, which is the single strongest demand signal in this category. Its listing is also one of the better ones to read: unbleached parchment, a stated non-stick coating, and a temperature rating given as 450F and 230C rather than left to guesswork. At under four pounds the cost of finding out whether you like cooking with liners is trivial.
The catch: 4.0p a use is a whisker off the best in the set, so if you already know you want liners the bigger pack saves you real money over a year. This is the sampling buy, not the settled one.
FIFHEN parchment liners for Ninja Dual, 150 pieces
£7.99 on 22 October 2026 · 150 liners · 5.3p a use · £11.08 a year at four cooks a week
Cut to the rectangular footprint of a Ninja dual-drawer basket rather than the round or square shapes that dominate the category, which matters more than it sounds: a round liner in a rectangular drawer leaves the corners bare and the paper free to move. The listing states 100% food-grade pulp, a food-safe non-stick coating and a 230C rating.
The catch: you are paying a 44% premium per liner over the cheapest paper here for the shape. If your air fryer is a single round basket, this is the wrong pack and the saving is yours to take elsewhere.
Reusable silicone air fryer liners, 3 pack, 3 to 7 litre
£8.99 on 22 October 2026 · 3 liners · £3.00 each · pays for itself after 81 uses
This is where the arithmetic gets interesting. One silicone liner costs £3.00. The cheapest paper liner costs 3.7p. So the silicone has to survive 81 cooks to break even, which at four sessions a week lands in mid-March. Everything after that is free, and three liners in the box means you can keep cooking while one is in the dishwasher. Over three years the silicone route costs about £3.00 a year against £7.68 for the best paper.
The catch: the payback only holds if it lasts, and the listing states no temperature rating at all, so the one number that would tell you how it behaves at 200C is missing. There is also a chore cost paper does not have. Eighty-one washes is the real price of that £3.00.
Silicone air fryer liner, 2 pack, Ninja Dual AF300UK and AF400UK
£8.99 on 22 October 2026 · 2 liners · £4.50 each · pays for itself after 122 uses
Sized for the two Ninja dual-zone models people actually own, and the listing is explicit that it washes by hand or in the dishwasher. Two liners covers both drawers of a dual-zone machine at once, which the three-pack above does not do as neatly if your drawers are rectangular.
The catch: £4.50 a liner stretches the break-even out to 122 cooks, so roughly seven months at four a week before you are ahead of cheap paper. No temperature rating is stated here either.
Stone TH disposable liners for Ninja Dual, 120 pieces
£6.97 on 22 October 2026 · 120 liners · 5.8p a use · £12.08 a year at four cooks a week
We are including it because it is genuinely selling, at number 24 in Home & Kitchen on 22 October, and because leaving it out would hide the most interesting listing in the set. It is the dearest paper liner here per use, and it is the one listing of all 20 we read whose own copy never uses the words food grade, food safe or food contact at all. It does say BPA free.
The catch: paying 57% more per liner than the best paper pick, for a listing that states neither a temperature rating nor a food contact claim, is a poor trade however well it is selling. Buy the 230-piece pack or the Roe Tenpo instead.
What 20 air fryer liner listings actually claim
On 22 October 2026 we read the first 20 unsponsored results on amazon.co.uk for air fryer liners and counted what each one states. The count is scoped to the product's own copy, which means the title, the bullet points, the product description, the detail bullets, the specification tables and the A+ content. It deliberately excludes the carousels of related products, because a page-wide search on an Amazon listing will confirm almost any feature you go looking for.
- 16 of the 20 are disposable paper, 4 are reusable silicone.
- 19 of the 20 describe themselves as food grade, food safe or food contact. The exception is the Stone TH pack above.
- 0 of the 20 name a standard, test method or regulation anywhere in their copy. No EN 1186, no Regulation 1935/2004, no LFGB, no FDA, no SGS, no BS EN. The claim is made 19 times and evidenced none.
- 9 of the 20 state a maximum temperature. The other 11 do not, which leaves out the one number Article 3 hangs its safety test on.
- Where a rating is given it runs from 220C to 232C, a spread narrow enough that temperature is not really a basis for choosing between the packs that state one.
- None of our six picks gives any instruction about using the liner in an air fryer, such as what to do before the basket is up to heat. The guidance a buyer most needs is the thing the listings skip.
Set that against the law and a gap opens up. The phrase food grade appears on nearly every listing. Nothing in GB legislation defines it for paper, nothing requires a declaration of compliance for a paper liner at retail, and no listing in the set points to a test that would stand behind it. That is not an accusation against any particular seller, who may well have the paperwork. It is a statement about what you can check from the page you are buying on, which is nothing.
One more thing worth recording while we were in there. We also opened the Ninja Foodi 6-in-1 Dual Zone 7.6L AF300UK listing, the air fryer most of these liners are cut for, selling at £200.00 on 22 October 2026. It states no wattage. So the electricity cost of the cook the liner sits inside cannot be worked out from that page either. We found the same thing on five of six slow cookers last month. Appliance listings in this market are consistently silent about power draw.
Paper or silicone, in one line
If you air fry less than about twice a week, buy the cheap paper and stop thinking about it, because 81 uses is more than a year away and a lot can change. If you air fry most days, the silicone three-pack is ahead by spring and free thereafter. The one thing the money does not settle is the washing up, and that is a matter of temperament rather than arithmetic.
Questions people ask
Are air fryer liners regulated in the UK?
Not specifically. The Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (England) Regulations 2012 create specific controls for plastics, ceramics, regenerated cellulose film, active and intelligent materials, epoxy derivatives and vinyl chloride. Paper and silicone are in none of those Parts, so liners are governed by the general requirement in Article 3 of retained Regulation 1935/2004 that they must not transfer constituents to food in harmful amounts under normal or foreseeable conditions of use.
What does food grade mean on an air fryer liner listing?
Less than it does on a plastic container. For plastics there is an authorised substance list and migration limits in retained Regulation 10/2011, plus an enforceable declaration of compliance. For paper liners there is no equivalent list and no retail declaration requirement, so food grade on a liner listing is the seller's own description rather than a defined legal status. Of the 20 listings we read on 22 October 2026, 19 used the phrase and none named a standard.
How hot can air fryer liners go?
Where a rating is stated it sits between 220C and 232C across the listings we read, which is above the 200C most domestic air fryers top out at. The difficulty is that 11 of the 20 state no rating at all, so on more than half the first page of results there is no number to compare against your machine.
Is silicone cheaper than paper in the long run?
Yes, if it lasts. A £3.00 silicone liner breaks even against the cheapest paper liner here, at 3.7p a use, after 81 cooks. At four air fryer sessions a week that is about five months. The £4.50 version sized for the Ninja AF300UK and AF400UK needs 122 cooks, so nearer seven months.
How much do air fryer liners cost a year?
On the paper packs here, between £7.68 and £12.08 a year if you air fry four times a week. The spread between the cheapest and the dearest paper liner is 3.7p against 5.8p a use, which is a £4.40 difference over a year. Silicone costs £8.99 once and then nothing.
Sources
- The Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (England) Regulations 2012, SI 2012/2619, read 22 October 2026, for the six material types given specific Parts and the declaration of compliance provisions.
- Article 3 of retained Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004, read 22 October 2026, for the general safety requirement and the wording on misleading presentation.
- Amazon.co.uk Best Sellers in Home & Kitchen, read 22 October 2026, for the chart positions at numbers 13 and 24.
- The product pages for each of the six picks and the first 20 unsponsored search results for air fryer liners on amazon.co.uk, all read 22 October 2026, for prices, pack counts, temperature ratings and claim wording.
Prices shown are the Amazon UK buy box read on 22 October 2026 and change without notice. Look Into is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme and earns from qualifying purchases made through the links on this page, at no extra cost to you. See how we make money.