Luggage Linear Inches Calculator
Add your bag's length, width, and height to get total linear inches and check it against your airline's carry-on or checked-bag size limit.
Luggage Linear Inches Calculator
Background.
Linear inches is simply a bag's length plus its width plus its height, added together into a single number — the measurement airlines use to set both carry-on and checked-baggage size limits. This calculator adds your three dimensions and compares the total against a size limit you specify, since airlines are not consistent with each other: a widely used checked-baggage limit is 62 linear inches (used by American, Delta, and United, and consistent with IATA's own 158cm/62in 'piece concept' figure for many US and Canada routes), while carry-on limits are typically smaller and vary more by carrier, commonly landing somewhere around 45 linear inches domestically.
Because the limit itself is not universal, this calculator asks you to enter it rather than hard-coding one number — check your specific airline's website before you pack, especially for international flights or budget carriers, which frequently set tighter limits and charge real fees for bags that don't fit.
What is luggage linear inches calculator?
Linear inches (or linear centimeters, outside the US) is a single number airlines use to cap the OVERALL size of a bag, calculated by adding its three dimensions — length, width, and height — together, rather than checking each dimension against a separate individual limit. A bag can pass a linear-inch limit even if it's unusually long, as long as its width and height are correspondingly smaller, which is why the sum matters more than any single dimension in isolation.
How to use this calculator.
- Measure your bag's length, width, and height in inches, including any external wheels, handles, or pockets that add to its overall size.
- Enter all three dimensions.
- Enter your airline's specific linear-inch limit — 62 is a common checked-bag default, but always confirm with your airline directly, since limits vary and budget or international carriers are often stricter.
- Read the total linear inches and compare it against the limit — if you're over, the calculator shows exactly how many inches you need to trim or which oversized-bag fee you may face.
The formula.
Total linear inches is simply the sum of the three dimensions: linearInches = length + width + height. The calculator subtracts your entered limit from that sum to report how many inches (if any) you are over, and expresses the total as a percentage of the limit so you can see at a glance how much margin you have.
A worked example.
A suitcase measures 28 inches long, 20 wide, and 12 deep — will a standard checked-bag allowance take it? Linear inches is the sum of the three dimensions, wheels and handles included: 28 + 20 + 12 = 60 linear inches. Against the 62-inch limit that most major US and international carriers apply to checked bags, that uses 60/62 ≈ 96.8% of the allowance — within limit, with exactly 2 inches to spare. The thin margin is the practical finding. Two inches is less than many wheel-and-handle assemblies add beyond a manufacturer's advertised ‘packing size’, and it is less than a strapped-on exterior pocket bulges when full — so this bag passes as measured, but the same model measured by a strict gate agent, protrusions included, could plausibly read 62-plus. Oversize fees at that point are steep (commonly $100–200 each way). The safe reading of a 96.8% result: fine as is, but measure the real, packed bag at its extremes, and treat anything above about 95% of the limit as a bag to measure twice rather than argue about at the counter.
Frequently asked questions.
What are 'linear inches' exactly?
Why is the linear-inch limit an input instead of a fixed number?
Should I include the wheels and handles when measuring my bag?
References& sources.
How this page was produced
- Published by
- Quanta Calculator
- Primary sources
- 1 cited below
- Method
- LI = L + W + H
- Published
- Last verified
Built with AI assistance and verified by automated tests against the cited sources — every worked example on this page is computed by the same code that runs the calculator. How we build and check calculators.
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