Up to $4,700 per passenger, no forced depreciation, bag fee refunded after 12 hours: what federal rules require of airlines on domestic trips.
For a trip entirely within the United States, federal regulation (14 CFR Part 254) sets the floor for what an airline must do. The airline’s contract of carriage adds detail but cannot go below it.
The limit is $4,700 per passenger, effective 22 January 2025. The airline may not impose a lower limit for lost, damaged or delayed baggage, and DOT has told airlines they may not apply arbitrary depreciation formulas or refuse to pay for items simply because they are in a category the airline dislikes.
The bag fee. Under the 2024 refund rule the fee must be refunded when the bag is delayed more than 12 hours after the flight lands. Lost bags get the fee back as a matter of course.
Deadlines. Federal rules set no fixed deadline for a domestic written claim, so the airline’s contract of carriage applies. Most give you between 21 and 45 days for the written claim, and only hours to make the first report at the airport. Check your airline’s page on this site for its own numbers.
Work out your own claim → Two minutes to your amount and deadlines.
A minimum. 14 CFR 254.4 says an air carrier shall not limit its liability for loss, damage or delay of a passenger’s baggage to an amount less than $4,700 per passenger. The airline may set a higher limit in its contract of carriage; it may not set a lower one, and it may not exclude a whole class of items to get around it. In practice airlines write the minimum into their contracts as the ceiling, so $4,700 is the number to work with, per passenger, not per bag.
Section 254.5 requires the DOT to review the figure every two years against the Consumer Price Index. The current $4,700 took effect on 22 January 2025; before that it was $3,800, and before that $3,500. Some airline pages and some call-centre scripts still quote the old number. A claim letter should cite the current figure and the section, and the airline’s own page on this site notes where its published limit is out of date.
The rule itself only sets the amount. The DOT’s enforcement office has gone further in guidance and in fines: an airline may not apply an arbitrary depreciation formula to what you paid, may not refuse to pay for an item because it is in a category the airline dislikes (electronics, jewellery, medication) when the item was in checked baggage the airline accepted, and may not impose a flat daily allowance for interim purchases. These are treated as unfair and deceptive practices under 49 U.S.C. 41712. Quote that when the airline’s reply tries any of them.
Dallas to Boston, bag lost. Contents at replacement cost: a laptop $1,300, clothes $640, shoes $140, toiletries $85, headphones $300, the suitcase $280, about $2,745. Interim purchases for the first days: $251. The bag fee paid: $35. The claim asks for $2,745 plus $251 under the liability rule, all inside the $4,700 minimum, and the $35 fee refunded on top under the 2024 refund rule because a domestic bag was not delivered within 12 hours. Total demanded: $3,031, with the arithmetic shown.
To the DOT’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection, online. The complaint goes to the airline’s consumer affairs office, which must answer the DOT, and it is counted against the airline in the department’s monthly report. It is not a court and it does not award money, but airlines settle claims that have a DOT complaint attached far faster than claims that do not. BagBack drafts the complaint when the airline stalls.
Yes. If the airline ignores the rules you can file with the DOT’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection, and the escalation tier prepares that complaint for you.