We investigated the effects of substrate, metal-line, and surface material on the performance of radio frequency identification(RFID) tag antenna using a tag antenna with a meander line radiator and T-matching network. The results showed that readability of the tag antenna with a thin high-loss substrate could be increased so that it was similar to that of a low-loss substrate if the substrate was very thin. The readability of the tag antenna decreased significantly when the metal line was thinner than the skin depth. The readability of the tag also decreased drastically when the tag was attached to high-permittivity high-loss target objects.