<p>Retrievals of methane isotopologues have the potential to differentiate between natural and anthropogenic methane sources types, which can provide much needed information about the current global methane budget. We investigate the feasibility of retrieving the second most abundant isotopologue of atmospheric methane (13CH4, roughly 1.1 % of total atmospheric methane) from the Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) channels of the future Sentinel 5/UVNS and current Copernicus Sentinel 5 Precursor TROPOMI instruments. With the intended goal of calculating the δ<sup>13</sup>C ratio, we assume that a δ<sup>13</sup>C uncertainty of better than 10 ‰ is sufficient to differentiate between source types, which corresponds to a <sup>13</sup>CH<sub>4</sub> uncertainty of <0.2 ppb. Using the well established Information Content analysis techniques and assuming clear sky, non-scattering conditions, we find that the SWIR3 (2305–2385 nm) channel on the TROPOMI instrument can achieve a mean uncertainty of <1 ppb, while the SWIR1 channel (1590–1675 nm) on the Sentinel 5 UVNS instrument can achieve <0.68 ppb. These uncertainties combined with modest spatial and/or temporal averaging techniques can reduce δ<sup>13</sup>C uncertainty to the target magnitude or better. However, we find that <sup>13</sup>CH<sub>4</sub> retrievals are highly sensitive to errors in a priori knowledge of temperature and pressure, and accurate knowledge of these profiles are required before <sup>13</sup>CH<sub>4</sub> retrievals can be performed on TROPOMI and future Sentinel 5/UVNS data.</p>