The Best Carry-On Luggage for Southwest

Southwest’s published carry-on policy, checked 3 September 2026, against manufacturer-published dimensions compiled the same day. Wheels and handles included. We have not tested these bags.

Two inches taller, two inches wider, one inch deeper

Seven of the eleven US carriers in our table publish 22 × 14 × 9 in. Southwest publishes 24 × 16 × 10 in. That is not a rounding difference — it is roughly 40% more box by volume, and it is the largest published cabin allowance of any US carrier we track. Southwest’s published policy in full.

Two further Southwest details change what you should buy. It publishes no carry-on weight limit, so the weight arithmetic that rules out heavy cases on Hawaiian is not binding here. And the carry-on is not a paid extra, so there is no fare tier deciding whether your bag flies in the bin.

What that box actually admits

Run every bag in this ledger with published dimensions against Southwest’s limit and 22 of them clear it — against just 6 that clear the strict 22 × 14 × 9 in box. Southwest is the one carrier where the shelf is genuinely open to you.

The catch, stated plainly

A bag bought to fill Southwest’s box will not fit most other airlines. The Samsonite Freeform is the clearest example on this page: at 23 × 15 × 10 in it is over the standard limit on every dimension, which means American, Delta, United, Alaska, JetBlue, Hawaiian and Breeze all publish a box it does not go into.

So the real question is not “what is the best Southwest carry-on”. It is whether Southwest is the airline you fly or merely the airline you fly most. If you take one trip a year on a legacy carrier, buy for the strict box and accept that your bag is smaller than Southwest would allow. The bags that clear 22 × 14 × 9.

No weight cap changes which bag wins

On Hawaiian, a published 25 lb carry-on cap means a 7.83 lb case has spent nearly a third of the allowance before you pack it. Which carriers publish a weight limit. Southwest publishes none, so on Southwest that arithmetic disappears.

It does not disappear for you, though. You still lift the bag into the bin, and a 6.5 lb hard case at 23 × 15 × 10 in packed full is a genuinely heavy object overhead. Weight stops being an airline problem and stays a shoulder problem.

The other half of the Southwest allowance

Southwest publishes a personal item at 18.5 × 13.5 × 8.5 in — slightly larger than the 18 × 14 × 8 in shelf most personal-item bags are built for, but narrower. Both bags in this ledger built to 18 × 14 × 8 in are over Southwest’s published width by half an inch, which is the kind of detail nobody checks and a sizer would. The personal-item shelf.

The picks

• Samsonite Freeform — the bag that uses the box. 23 × 15 × 10 in of polypropylene at 6.5 lb and a published $129.99, under a 10-year global warranty. Its con: it fails the standard limit on all three dimensions, so it is a Southwest bag and not a general one.
• Travelpro Maxlite 5 — the pick if you ever fly anyone else. 46 L at 5.4 lb, $160, lifetime warranty with a published repair route. Its con: a 23 in published height still fails the strict box.
• American Tourister Moonlight — the cheapest way in. $90.99 published, 1.5 in of expansion, 10-year global warranty. Its con: 7.83 lb empty and single spinner wheels, which are the usual first failure point.
• Samsonite Omni PC — the polycarbonate answer. Full polycarbonate at $127.49 and $12.75 per covered year. Its con: 7.05 lb, and the price moves by colorway.