Montreal Convention and DOT baggage deadlines in plain English: 7 days for damage, 21 days for delay, 2 years to sue. Miss one and the airline keeps the money.
The airline does not have to tell you that a clock is running. It starts the moment your bag goes missing or comes back with a cracked shell, and if it runs out, the money you are owed stops being owed. Deadlines are the single most common reason a valid baggage claim dies.
Here are the filing windows that actually matter, what each one covers, and how to lock the dates down before the airline can use them against you.
If your trip was international, you have 7 days from the day you receive a damaged bag to file a written complaint, and 21 days from the day the bag was placed back in your hands to complain about delay. If the bag never shows up, the claim does not expire at 21 days, but your right to sue does expire after 2 years.
If your trip was domestic, the federal government does not set a filing deadline at all. Your airline does, in its contract of carriage, and those windows are shorter than most passengers expect.
Under Article 31 of the Montreal Convention, a damaged baggage claim requires written notice within 7 days of receipt. Not 7 days from when you noticed the crack. Not 7 days from when you got home and unpacked. Seven days from the moment the bag was handed to you, often at an airport carousel at 11 p.m. after a long flight.
Many carriers also want the damage reported before you leave the airport. If you spot damage at the carousel, go straight to the baggage service desk and file a Property Irregularity Report (PIR) then. That report is not the claim itself, but it is the timestamp that proves you flagged it early.
For a bag that arrives late, the window is 21 days from the date the bag was placed at your disposal, meaning the day it was delivered to you, whether that was at the airport or by courier to your hotel three days later.
Two things trip people up here. First, the clock does not wait for the airline’s tracking app to stop saying “on the next flight.” Reassurance from an app changes nothing about the deadline. Second, a delay claim is not just about the bag. It covers what the delay cost you: replacement clothes, toiletries, a rental car to chase the bag down. Keep those receipts, because this claim is documented expense recovery, up to about $2,081 per passenger on international itineraries.
A bag is normally treated as lost after 21 days of non-delivery, or as soon as the airline admits it is gone. There is no separate complaint deadline for a bag that is simply gone, which makes this the one claim type where passengers often assume they can take their time.
They cannot. Article 35 of the Montreal Convention gives you 2 years from the date of arrival, or the date the aircraft should have arrived, to bring an action. Courts in the US and across most state parties treat that limit as absolute. No tolling, no extensions because you were still negotiating, no exceptions because the airline kept promising a supervisor would call. Two years is the outer wall, and once you pass it the right to damages is extinguished.
No federal filing deadline exists for domestic checked bags, and that is exactly why domestic claims are easier to lose. The rules come from the airline’s contract of carriage, and they vary by carrier.
What DOT does set is a floor on liability. Under 14 CFR Part 254, a US airline cannot limit its liability for a lost, damaged, or delayed bag to less than $4,700 per passenger on domestic air transportation. That figure was raised as an inflation adjustment with effect from 22 January 2025. It is a minimum the airline must honor, not a cap on what you can prove you lost.
Carrier deadlines are where people get caught. American Airlines asks for damage to be reported within 6 hours of arrival and the written claim within 30 days. United wants a delayed or damaged bag reported within 24 hours and the written claim within 45 days. Some carriers allow longer, some impose shorter windows for specific bag types. Check your own airline’s windows, verified against its pages, before you assume you have time.
The consequences are not identical, and the difference matters.
Miss the Article 31 notice window and the airline gains a procedural defense. It can refuse the claim on paperwork grounds even when the bag was clearly mishandled, and it usually will. Miss the Article 35 two-year limit and there is nothing left to argue about. The right itself is gone, and no amount of documentation brings it back.
In short: the 7-day and 21-day windows are survivable mistakes. The 2-year wall is not.
Contingency services will handle the calendar for you. They will also keep 35 to 50 percent of whatever the airline pays. On a $2,000 delayed bag claim, that is $700 to $1,000 gone for work that is mostly filing forms on time.
BagBack is built to avoid that trade. It works out what your airline owes under the rules that apply, puts every deadline in one place, and prepares the itemized claim and demand letter for you to file in your own name. Seeing the amount and the dates costs nothing. Starting the case is $0 (no card: you sign a one-paragraph authorisation), then 25% only when the airline pays; or $49 flat if you prefer. You keep the recovery, and you still get the calendar.
Work out your deadlines and your claim → Two minutes to your amount and deadlines.
This article is general information about baggage claim rules, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for your airline’s contract of carriage or advice from a lawyer about your specific claim.
No. The Property Irregularity Report gives you a file reference and the timestamp; the claim is the written notice with the amounts, and on an international trip it must arrive within 7 days for damage or 21 days for delay.
Not a complaint window: a bag that never arrives is treated as lost after 21 days and the claim does not expire then. The hard stop is 2 years from arrival to bring an action, and courts do not extend it.
No. DOT sets a liability floor of $4,700 per passenger but no filing deadline; the deadline is in your airline’s contract of carriage, and it is often days, not weeks.