diff --git a/src/spatialdata/_core/spatialdata.py b/src/spatialdata/_core/spatialdata.py
index a931839b..f42b4df8 100644
--- a/src/spatialdata/_core/spatialdata.py
+++ b/src/spatialdata/_core/spatialdata.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 import json
 import os
 import warnings
-from collections.abc import Generator, Mapping
+from collections.abc import Generator, Iterable, Mapping
 from itertools import chain
 from pathlib import Path
 from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Any, Literal
@@ -2417,6 +2417,59 @@ def __delitem__(self, key: str) -> None:
         element_type, _, _ = self._find_element(key)
         getattr(self, element_type).__delitem__(key)
 
+    def filter_elements_by_instances(
+        self,
+        element_names: Iterable[str],
+        instances: Iterable[int | str],
+        region_names: Iterable[str] | str | None = None,
+    ) -> dict[str, DaskDataFrame | GeoDataFrame | AnnData]:
+        """
+        Filter elements to contain only certain instances.
+
+        This filters both SpatialElements (points and shapes)
+        as well as tables to only contain certain IDs. In case of tables
+        the instance key column of table.obs will be filtered on and not
+        table.obs.index. Filtering labels by ID is currently not supported
+        as this is an expensive operation. Should you require this
+        please open an issue on github.com/scverse/spatialdata. Lastly,
+        tables not annotating an element cannot be filtered.
+
+        element_names:
+            Name of either points, shapes or table elements within the Spatialdata
+            object.
+        instances:
+            The instance IDs to filter the elements on.
+        region_names:
+            If filtering instances in a table, indicate the region_names (the names of the SpatialElement) for
+            which you want to filter the instances of the table. If not specified, the table instances for all regions
+            annotated by the table will be filtered by the given instances.
+        """
+        element_dict = {}
+        element_names = [element_names] if isinstance(element_names, str) else list(element_names)
+        for element_name in element_names:
+            element = self.get(element_name)
+            if element is not None:
+                if (model := get_model(element)) == PointsModel:
+                    instance_key = element.attrs[PointsModel.ATTRS_KEY][PointsModel.INSTANCE_KEY]
+                    element_dict[element_name] = element[element[instance_key].isin(instances)]
+                elif model == ShapesModel:
+                    element_dict[element_name] = element[element.index.isin(instances)]
+                elif model == TableModel:
+                    instance_key = element.uns[TableModel.ATTRS_KEY][TableModel.INSTANCE_KEY]
+                    region_key = element.uns[TableModel.ATTRS_KEY][TableModel.REGION_KEY_KEY]
+                    if region_names:
+                        region_names = [region_names] if isinstance(region_names, str) else region_names
+                        element = element[element.obs[region_key].isin(region_names)]
+                    regions = element.obs[region_key].cat.categories.tolist()
+                    element_dict[element_name] = element[element.obs[instance_key].isin(instances)].copy()
+                    element_dict[element_name].uns[TableModel.ATTRS_KEY][TableModel.REGION_KEY] = regions
+                    TableModel().validate(element_dict[element_name])
+                else:
+                    raise TypeError(f"`{model}` is not a valid model for filtering of instances.")
+            else:
+                raise KeyError(f"`{element_name}` is not an element in the SpatialData object.")
+        return element_dict
+
     @property
     def attrs(self) -> dict[Any, Any]:
         """