Does My Checked Bag Fit Southwest? The Box, the Weight, and What It Now Costs

Affiliate disclosure: some links in this article are tracked partner links; we may earn a commission at no cost to you, and it never changes what we recommend.

The verdict

1. Southwest's checked bag has to clear one box and one weight, and the airline now states that a fee applies. Its checked-baggage page publishes "62 inches in size (length + width + height)" with "Wheels and handles should be included when measuring.", "Up to 50 pounds each", and the flat sentence "Checked baggage fees apply." Miss the box and the oversize charge is "$200 + Standard Fee" — at which point a door-to-door shipping quote, which one operator publishes as starting at "$99/bag", stops being exotic.
2. Free checked bags still exist on Southwest, but they are attached to a fare or a status rather than to the airline. Its optional-charges table lists "Free" for both bags on the Choice Extra Fare and for "Active-duty military Customers", "First checked bag free" and "Second checked bag free" for Rapid Rewards A-List Preferred Members, and "First checked bag free" for A-List Members and Rapid Rewards Credit Cardmembers.
3. The page publishes two fee schedules side by side, and the later one is the one you are paying. For U.S. Mainland travel "booked and ticketed before April 9, 2026" the first checked bag is "$35" and the second "$45". For travel "booked and ticketed and/or changed on or after April 9, 2026" they are "$45" and "$55". Read the heading above the table before you read the numbers.

What southwest.com published when we read it

Everything below was read on southwest.com and support.southwest.com on 22 September 2026, and every figure is as of September 2026. Where a number sits in a table rather than in a sentence, we quote the cell and describe the row it belongs to — we have not stitched a label onto a figure.

The checked-baggage help article is short and states four things: the size rule, the measuring instruction, the weight cap, and that "Checked baggage fees apply." It adds one operational detail that catches people at the counter: "If you choose to check your bag at the airport and your bags are subject to additional fees due to weight or size, you must pay for any fees with a physical credit card". And it notes that "We have baggage embargoes in place for some countries—restrictions on oversized, overweight, and extra checked bags."

That last sentence is worth taking seriously before an international Southwest itinerary, because an embargo is not a fee — it is a refusal.

The size rule, and what counts

"62 inches in size (length + width + height)" is a single total, not three separate maximums, and the instruction beneath it is the part that catches hard-shell buyers: "Wheels and handles should be included when measuring."

That is the same measurement convention the rest of the industry uses — Frontier writes it as "62 linear inches (length plus width plus depth, including handles, wheels, and straps)" and Air Canada as "D + W + H: 158 cm/62 in" on the "greatest outside height, width and length – wheels and handles included". The gap between a case's advertised size and the number a counter measures is the whole subject of listed against exterior checked-bag dimensions, and the rule itself is unpacked in the 62-linear-inch explainer. Check your own case against the box with our airline sizer tool.

The weight line is equally plain: "Up to 50 pounds each".

The charges, as the table presents them

Southwest's optional-charges page is a grid. Down the left are fare products and status tiers; across the top are the carry-on allowance, the first checked bag and the second. A separate "Additional Fees" table below carries the penalties. Here is what the cells say.

On the current U.S. Mainland schedule — the one headed "booked and ticketed and/or changed on or after April 9, 2026" — the Basic, Choice and Choice Preferred fares all show "$45" in the first-bag column and "$55" in the second. The Choice Extra Fare shows "Free" in both. A-List Preferred Members show "First checked bag free" and "Second checked bag free"; A-List Members show "First checked bag free" and then "$35"; Rapid Rewards Credit Cardmembers show "First checked bag free" and "$55". Active-duty military Customers show "Free" across the row.

The earlier table, for travel booked and ticketed before April 9, 2026, shows "$35" and "$45" in the same two columns. Both tables are published simultaneously on the same page, which is how you can tell the schedule moved this year without relying on anyone's memory of what it used to be.

The penalties sit in their own table and stack on top of the bag fee rather than replacing it. The third-and-beyond checked bag is "$150". The oversize row, which the table labels as 63 to 80 inches, reads "$200 + Standard Fee". "Overweight (51-70 lbs.)" reads "$100 + Standard Fee" and "Overweight (71-100 lbs.)" reads "$200 + Standard Fee". A bag that is both shows "$200 + Standard Fee".

One inch and one pound are the whole difference between a bag fee and a bag fee plus two hundred dollars. How to stay under those lines, on Southwest and elsewhere, is in how to avoid an overweight checked-bag fee, and why your scale at home is less certain than you think is in luggage scales for a checked bag.

Two categories get a partial reprieve. Sports equipment shows "Waived" against an oversize row labelled 63 to 115 inches while still paying standard checked bag fees and the same overweight charges. Musical instruments show "Waived" against an oversize row labelled up to 150 inches. Large media camera equipment shows "Waived" against an oversize row labelled up to 110 inches and an overweight row labelled up to 100 lbs., with a third-and-beyond bag at "$75".

Interisland Hawaii runs on its own grid: on the current schedule, non-Hawaii residents show "$30", "$40" and "$50" for the first three bags, while Hawaii Residents show "Free", "Free" and "$50".

The hard ceilings, which are not fees

Above a certain size and weight there is no charge to pay, because the bag is not accepted.

Southwest's contract of carriage states that it "will not accept as Baggage any item having outside measurements (i.e., the sum of the greatest outside length plus height plus width) that exceed eighty (80) inches or that weigh more than one hundred (100) pounds." Musical instruments have their own ceilings — the contract refuses one whose outside linear dimensions exceed "one hundred fifty (150) inches" or whose weight exceeds "one hundred sixty-five (165) pounds (including case or covering)". Assistive devices are refused above "five hundred (500) pounds", or above "34 inches" in height, or above "45 inches" in width or depth. And a ticketed passenger "may not check more than twenty (20) pieces of Baggage per flight."

So the practical band on Southwest is 62 inches to 80 inches, and 50 pounds to 100 pounds, with a charge in between and a refusal past it. A 63-inch bag is in the first oversize band before anything goes in it — which is exactly the situation some rolling duffels are in on their own published dimensions, audited in rolling duffels at checked size.

The timings that cost money

Southwest publishes deadlines in the same contract, and two of them decide whether a delayed bag is your problem or theirs.

Domestic bags must be checked "at least forty-five (45) minutes prior to the flight’s scheduled departure time," and international bags "at least sixty (60) minutes" ahead. Southwest pays delayed-delivery charges only on bags tendered inside that forty-five-minute rule. If a bag goes missing, you must report it and "receive a Baggage report number not later than four (4) hours" after arrival or receipt; damage must be reported in person "not later than 24 hours". And if the bag is lost or delayed by "twelve (12) or more hours", Southwest "will refund the excess, oversize, and/or overweight charge paid".

If the bag never turns up at all, the ceiling is set outside Southwest. Federal rules prescribe the notice a carrier must give: "Federal rules require any limit on an airline's baggage liability to be at least $4,700 per passenger." Southwest's contract caps what you may declare above that at "One Thousand Two Hundred Fifty and 00/100 dollars ($1,250.00)", for "a total maximum declared valuation of Five Thousand Nine Hundred Fifty and 00/100 dollars ($5950.00)".

The carrier is also explicit that it "provides no guarantee or assurance that Baggage will arrive on the same flight as the Passenger." Where the maker's promise ends and the carrier's begins is mapped in what a luggage warranty covers and where airline damage goes.

When to price shipping instead

Run the arithmetic on your own itinerary rather than on a rule of thumb.

An oversize bag on Southwest is "$200 + Standard Fee" each way. Against that, LugLess publishes that "Shipping starts at $25 per bag for domestic U.S. routes" with "no overweight fees up to 100 lbs", and Luggage Forward publishes "Our pricing starts at $99/bag" with value protection "up to $500" and a guarantee to "refund you double what you paid to ship the bag" if it misses. For one light bag on a short hop, checking wins easily. For an oversize or overweight bag, or several bags, the budget shipping quote is worth pulling before you commit.

If the recurring problem is that the case itself is eating the allowance, the size choice is worked through in twenty-five inches against twenty-eight, and the multi-bag version in the best checked luggage set for a family.

What we could not read

Southwest's help centre serves an application shell to plain requests, so the checked-baggage article above was read through a rendering fetch rather than from raw HTML. The optional-charges page at southwest.com is static and was read directly.

We are not reproducing the embargo dates or destinations, because the embargo article did not render to our plain requests and we will not publish a date we could not read cold. Southwest's own checked-baggage page states that embargoes exist for some countries and restrict oversized, overweight and extra checked bags; check that article for your route before you book.

Southwest publishes no figure for how often a bag is refused for size, and no carrier we read publishes one, so nothing here estimates the risk — only the published bands.

FAQ

What size checked bag does Southwest allow?

Southwest publishes a single total of 62 inches, measured as length plus width plus height, and states that wheels and handles should be included when measuring. Above that, its optional-charges table opens an oversize band at 63 inches running to 80 inches, and its contract of carriage refuses any bag whose outside measurements exceed 80 inches altogether.

How much does Southwest charge for a checked bag now?

Its own optional-charges page publishes two U.S. Mainland schedules. For travel booked and ticketed before April 9, 2026 the first checked bag is thirty-five dollars and the second forty-five. For travel booked, ticketed or changed on or after that date they are forty-five and fifty-five. A third or later bag is a hundred and fifty dollars, and overweight and oversize charges are added on top of the bag fee rather than replacing it.

Does anyone still get a free checked bag on Southwest?

Yes, and the page names who. The Choice Extra Fare shows free for both checked bags, as do active-duty military customers. Rapid Rewards A-List Preferred Members show a free first and second bag; A-List Members and Rapid Rewards Credit Cardmembers show a free first bag, with the second charged. The benefit attaches to the fare or the status, not to the airline generally.

How heavy can a Southwest checked bag be?

The published allowance is up to 50 pounds each. Between 51 and 70 pounds the table shows a hundred dollars plus the standard fee, and between 71 and 100 pounds two hundred plus the standard fee. Above 100 pounds the contract of carriage will not accept the bag at all, so there is no fee to pay — only a bag you cannot check.