Checked Bag Fees by Airline

What the carriers publish

Domestic first and second checked bag, standard fares, as published by each carrier on its own site. Figures read 28 September 2026.

“Each way” is the word that matters

Delta publishes its fee as $45 per bag each way, and every other carrier here works the same. It is the single most-missed detail in airline pricing, because the number you see when you book is the one-direction number.

The two-bag column is the one worth staring at. Second bags are priced above first bags everywhere — $55 at Delta, American and Southwest, $59 at JetBlue, $109 on JetBlue’s cheapest fares — so a couple checking one bag each pays less than one person checking two.

When the bag pays for itself

This is the arithmetic the fee tables never show you. At the common $90 round trip, a carry-on that reliably clears a sizer is not an expense — it is a fixed cost that stops a recurring one.

A published $95 duffel against a $90 round trip means the second time you fly without checking, the bag has paid for itself and started returning money. Even the $729 case breaks even inside a year for someone flying monthly.

The catch is the fit column, and it is not a formality. Only seven bags in our whole ledger clear the standard 22 × 14 × 9 in box on all three published dimensions — here is the list. A bag that is close but over is the worst purchase on this page, because it gets stopped at the gate and you pay the fee anyway, at the higher airport rate.

Prepaying is a real discount

• American publishes $45 prepaid against $50 at the airport — $5 a bag, each way, so $20 on a round trip for a couple.
• JetBlue publishes a saving of up to $10 each on your first two checked bags when they are added at least 24 hours before departure.

Neither is life-changing, and both are free money for thirty seconds of work at booking. The airport rate is the one you pay for deciding late.

Southwest is the change worth knowing about

For decades Southwest was the US carrier where bags flew free, and a great deal of travel advice still assumes that. It is no longer true.

Southwest publishes $45 for the first checked bag and $55 for the second on Basic and Choice fares for travel booked on or after 9 April 2026. Before that date the same page published $35 and $45. Choice Extra fares still include the bag, as do A-List Preferred members.

The fee is not the only charge

Every carrier here publishes a weight and size cap on the bag you just paid for, and going over adds a second charge on top of the first.

• 50 lb and 62 linear inches is the standard. Delta and Southwest both publish it, and Southwest specifies that wheels and handles are included in the measurement.
• Frontier publishes 40 lb, not 50. That is ten pounds below the figure most travelers pack to, on a carrier whose overweight charge is published at $75 to $129 per bag, per direction.
• Southwest publishes $100 on top of the standard fee for a bag of 51 to 70 lb, and $200 for 71 to 100 lb or for a bag of 63 to 80 linear inches.

Which makes the empty weight of the case itself a live number: an 11 lb hardside spends a fifth of a 50 lb allowance before you pack. What an overweight bag actually costs and which large bags are already over the size cap both matter more once a fee is attached.

When none of this applies

Three honest exceptions, because the arithmetic above is not universal.

You have status or the airline’s credit card

Alaska, American, Delta and Southwest all publish a free first checked bag for elite members and, at most of them, for co-branded card holders. If that is you, the fee is $0 and buying a bag to avoid it saves nothing.

You genuinely need the space

Ski gear, a month of winter clothes, a family of four, anything that does not compress. Paying $90 to travel properly equipped is a fine trade, and pretending otherwise is how people end up with a miserable trip and a bag they cannot lift. When checking a bag is right takes that side seriously.

You fly a carrier that charges for the cabin too

On Frontier, Allegiant, Breeze, Sun Country and Ryanair the overhead bag is itself a paid extra, so “carry on instead” is not free — it is a choice between two fees. Which airlines charge for a carry-on is the companion to this page, and on those carriers the bag that stays free is the personal item.

What we would actually do

• Work out your real annual number first. Round trips per year × the each-way fee × 2. Four round trips at $45 is $360 a year, which is most of a Briggs & Riley.
• Buy a bag that clears the box, not one that is close. The published depth is where soft bags fail, and a gate-check erases the entire saving.
• Prepay if you are checking anyway. Free money at American and JetBlue.
• Weigh it at home. An overweight charge is additional to the fee you already paid, and at Frontier the line is 40 lb.
• Check your own carrier before you fly. Five of the carriers we track do not publish these figures in a form we could read, and every fee on this page changed within the last year.