An AirTag does not continuously beam its position to your iPhone. That is why Find My can sometimes show a location that is minutes or even hours old.
AirTag relies on Apple’s Find My network. When it is away from you, nearby Apple devices can securely detect it and relay its approximate location. If no compatible device has passed close enough recently, Find My has nothing newer to show.
This is especially noticeable in quiet areas, inside parked cars, in luggage rooms or anywhere with less foot traffic. An AirTag in a busy station or shopping centre may update often, while one left somewhere remote can remain stuck on its last seen position for much longer.
Find My usually labels the location with a time such as “Now” or “10 min ago.” That timestamp matters more than the map pin itself because it tells you when the AirTag was last detected.
If the AirTag is close to you, Bluetooth and Precision Finding on supported iPhone models can give you much more immediate information. But once it is out of range, you are dependent on another device in the Find My network coming nearby.
A low or dead AirTag battery can also stop fresh location updates. If Find My reports Low Battery, replacing the CR2032 cell is worth doing before assuming there is a network problem.
So an old AirTag location does not necessarily mean Find My is broken. It usually means the tracker has not been detected by another participating device since the time shown on screen.