Your rights for a lost or damaged bag
If your checked bag does not arrive within 12 hours of a domestic flight landing, the checked-bag fee is refundable. If the bag is lost, the airline’s liability for the contents runs up to $4,700 per passenger on a domestic itinerary.
Almost nobody claims the fee refund, because almost nobody knows it exists.
What the regulation actually says
“12 hours of the last flight segment’s arrival for domestic itineraries, within 15 hours of the last flight segment’s arrival for international itineraries with a non-stop flight segment between the United States and a foreign point that is 12 hours or less in duration, and within 30 hours of the last flight segment’s arrival for international itineraries with a non-stop flight segment between the United States and a foreign point that is more than 12 hours in duration”
In plain terms. Twelve hours domestic, fifteen or thirty hours international depending on the length of the longest non-stop segment. Past that, the bag is "significantly delayed" and the fee you paid to check it is refundable.
Read 14 CFR 260.2 in full“Refunding fees for significantly delayed or lost bags”
In plain terms. The section that requires the bag fee back once the delay thresholds above are crossed.
Read 14 CFR 260.5 in fullWhen 14 CFR 260.2 changed
Rights are not fixed. Each entry below is an amendment recorded in the regulation’s own source note, oldest first.
- Apr. 26, 2024 89 FR 32832The automatic-refund rule is published, defining for the first time what counts as a significant change.
- Aug. 12, 2024 89 FR 65536Amended.
Dates and Federal Register citations come from the source note published with the regulation. Where an entry carries no description, the source note records the amendment without summarising it, and we do not guess at what changed.
How often this actually happens
The rule tells you what you are owed. Federal performance data tells you how often the situation arises, and on which airlines. These figures are ours, computed from the sources listed at the foot of the page.
In 2024, Frontier collected $36.16 per passenger in baggage and change fees.
Form 41 ancillary revenue divided by passengers boarded. This measures what the airline charges for bags, not how often bags go missing.
Every figure here is validated against its source row before this page can publish. The rules behind that check are on our editorial guidelines page.
What this does not cover
- The $4,700 figure is a liability ceiling for domestic itineraries, effective 22 January 2025. It is not a payout you should expect: the airline pays the depreciated value of what was actually in the bag, and you have to document it.
- International itineraries are governed by the Montreal Convention, which uses a different and generally lower limit.
- A delayed bag and a lost bag are different claims. The fee refund follows the delay thresholds; the contents claim follows the liability limit.
- Row30 does not yet hold mishandled-baggage rates per carrier, so this page cites fee revenue rather than how often each airline loses bags. That gap is tracked.
How courts have read it
We are building a case library from federal opinions on denied boarding, tarmac delays, refunds and deceptive-practice claims, sourced from CourtListener and attributed to the Free Law Project. It is not published yet, and rather than summarise holdings we have not verified line by line, this section stays empty until it is.
Row30 provides data journalism and education, not legal advice. We are not a law firm and do not represent passengers in legal proceedings. For advice about your own situation, consult an attorney.
Source: U.S. DOT Form 41 ancillary revenue via BTS; analysis by Row30.