AbstractIn this paper, we study flow through thin porous media as in, e.g. seals or fractures. It is often useful to know the permeability of such systems. In the context of incompressible and iso-viscous fluids, the permeability is the constant of proportionality relating the total flow through the media to the pressure drop. In this work, we show that it is also relevant to define a constant permeability when compressible and/or piezo-viscous fluids are considered.