Unaccompanied Baggage: Weight Limits and Your HHG Allowance

The Shipment That Arrives First

Unaccompanied baggage is the small, fast shipment meant to reach your new duty station ahead of everything else — the sheets, the pots and pans, the uniforms, the crib, the things that make a bare house livable while the main shipment is still in transit. What it is not is extra. Every pound of it comes out of the same figure your main shipment is weighed against, which you can look up by grade and dependency status on the weight allowances page.

That one fact decides the rest. If you send 1,200 pounds ahead and then load the truck to your full ceiling, you are over by those 1,200 pounds — and the overage is billed to you, not absorbed. The Joint Travel Regulations state the rule twice, in two paragraphs of the section that sets the weight allowance.

What follows is read from the Joint Travel Regulations, edition 08/01/2026, with paragraph numbers given so every rule here can be checked against the regulation itself. A few abbreviations recur: HHG is household goods, PDS is your permanent duty station, PBP&E is professional books, papers and equipment (pro-gear), and CONUS and OCONUS are inside and outside the continental United States.

What Is Unaccompanied Baggage?

Unaccompanied baggage is a small shipment of necessary items sent by an expedited mode, separately from your main household goods shipment, so that what you need first can arrive first. For a PCS, JTR Appendix A says it includes personal clothing and effects, equipment directly related to the assignment, essential cooking items, light housekeeping items, and the cribs, playpens and baby carriages needed to care for dependents — and that refrigerators, washing machines, other major appliances and furniture are not unaccompanied baggage.

The definition itself is short:

UNACCOMPANIED BAGGAGE is a Service member or civilian employee's necessary items shipped by an expedited mode to a TDY or PCS location. The component's transportation office determines the method of transportation and payment. Unaccompanied baggage may be transported separately from the majority of household goods.

Two things in it are worth slowing down for. The method is the transportation office's call, not yours — "expedited mode" is not a synonym for air, and the office decides how the shipment moves and how it is paid for. And the shipment is defined by what is in it and how it moves, not by when it leaves.

The contents rule is just as specific. For PCS travel, temporary change of station travel, renewal agreement travel and consecutive overseas tour travel, Appendix A says unaccompanied baggage includes "personal clothing and effects, equipment directly related to the assignment, essential cooking items, light housekeeping items, cribs, playpens, and baby carriages that are required for the care of dependents." It then rules out the heavy things explicitly: "Items such as refrigerators, washing machines, and other major appliances or furniture are not unaccompanied baggage."

The dividing line the definition draws is function and bulk: a crib is named in it and a dresser is furniture, so the crib may go and the dresser may not. If an item is furniture or a major appliance, it belongs in the main shipment regardless of how badly you want it early.

Does Unaccompanied Baggage Count Against Your HHG Weight Allowance?

Yes — in full, with no separate pool and no exemption. JTR par. 051403-A says unaccompanied baggage "is part of the Service member's authorized HHG weight allowance," and par. 051401-A defines the Table 5-37 allowance as "the total combined weight of any HHG shipped, plus any unaccompanied baggage shipped, and any HHG in storage." Every pound you send ahead comes off what the main shipment can weigh before you start paying for excess.

Three pieces, one ceiling. That is the rule to plan around, because it means the arithmetic has to be done before pack-out and not after.

Par. 051401-A goes on to list what is not in the allowance, and the contrast is the whole point. Par. 051401-A-1 excludes PBP&E, required medical equipment and gun safes; par. 051401-A-2 excludes accompanied baggage and excess accompanied baggage — the bags that travel with you. Unaccompanied baggage is on neither list.

Shipment	Counts against the Table 5-37 allowance?	Authority
Main household goods shipment	Yes	par. 051401-A
Unaccompanied baggage	Yes	pars. 051401-A and 051403-A
Household goods in storage	Yes	par. 051401-A
PBP&E (pro-gear), member and approved spouse	No	pars. 051401-A-1 and 051304-A-1
Required medical equipment	No — and it has no weight limit	pars. 051401-A-1 and 051304-B
An empty gun safe	No, within the ceiling in par. 051304-C	par. 051401-A-1
Accompanied and excess accompanied baggage	No	par. 051401-A-2
Items of extraordinary value	Yes — and they may not travel as unaccompanied baggage	section 0516

What Is the Unaccompanied Baggage Weight Limit?

Unless your new duty station has an administrative weight limit, there is no separate figure: your unaccompanied baggage shares your grade's Table 5-37 household goods allowance with the main shipment and anything in storage. Administrative limits exist only OCONUS (JTR par. 051402-A-1). Where the new PDS has one, par. 051403-A caps unaccompanied baggage at the lesser of that location's administrative limit or 2,000 pounds for a member with command-sponsored family members (for the whole family), 10% of the authorized weight allowance for an unaccompanied member normally assigned to furnished Government quarters, or 2,000 pounds for an unaccompanied member not normally assigned to furnished bachelor quarters. Wherever you are going, no more than 1,000 pounds of it, pro-gear included, may go by commercial air (par. 051403-B).

The caps in par. 051403-A are written with a condition in front of them, and the condition is easy to read past:

If the new PDS is a location with an HHG administrative weight limit, then the unaccompanied baggage weight is the lesser of either the administrative weight limit for the PDS location listed at Administrative HHG Weight Allowance Locations, or one of the following:

So the caps attach to the destination, not to the shipment. If your new PDS is not on the administrative weight limit list, none of the three figures below applies to you, and the total your unaccompanied baggage can weigh is bounded by your grade's allowance — the commercial-air limit governs only how much of it goes by commercial air. If your new PDS is on the list, the cap is the lesser of the location's own administrative limit and whichever of these three describes you:

Your situation	Unaccompanied baggage limit	Authority
Active duty, with command-sponsored family members	2,000 pounds — for the entire family, not for each traveler	par. 051403-A-1
Active duty, unaccompanied, normally assigned to furnished Government quarters	10% of your authorized weight allowance	par. 051403-A-2
Active duty, unaccompanied, not normally assigned to furnished bachelor enlisted or bachelor officer quarters	2,000 pounds	par. 051403-A-3

The qualifier in the first row is in the regulation's own words — "The 2,000-pound weight limit is for the entire family, not for each traveler" — and it rules out multiplying by the number of people. A family of five gets the same figure as a family of two.

The second row is a percentage rather than a number, so it moves with the Table 5-37 row you sit on: 10% of a junior enlisted allowance and 10% of a senior officer's are very different shipments. Work it out from your own grade and dependency status rather than from somebody else's.

At such a location the baggage also counts inside the location's overall limit, not only against its own cap. The same paragraph says that when the shipment is to an area with an administrative weight limit for HHG, "the unaccompanied baggage weight is part of the administrative HHG weight limitation."

Where Do Administrative Weight Limits Apply?

Only at a duty station outside the continental United States, and only at a location on the published list. Par. 051402-A-1, the provision that creates these limits, says weight allowances "can be administratively restricted at a PDS OCONUS based on factors at that location" — whether household goods are supplied at the PDS, whether space for them is limited in Government quarters or private-sector housing, and whether storage for excess household goods is limited in the area. The list is a JTR supplement, Administrative HHG Weight Allowance Locations, published on the Defense Travel Management Office's website, and par. 051403-A compares the baggage caps with the administrative limit "listed" there.

For an unaccompanied tour location, getting onto that list is a formal process, not a local decision. Par. 051402-D requires the request to name the location, the proposed allowance and the reasons for the reduction, the period it runs for, and the Services affected; par. 051402-D-2 then routes it through each affected Service's Secretarial Process and on to the PDTATAC's Military Advisory Panel and Civilian Advisory Panel members for final review and determination, after which the location "will be listed at Administrative HHG Weight Allowance Locations." The paragraph ends: "Weight restrictions for locations not listed are not valid."

Three practical consequences follow, all from the regulation rather than from custom:

• The remainder is not lost. Par. 051402-A-3: when the new PDS has an administrative weight limit, you are authorized transportation of the rest of your Table 5-37 allowance to a designated place or into non-temporary storage. The limit caps what goes there, not what the Government will move.
• Some moves are exempt outright. Par. 051402-B: administrative limits do not apply to household goods shipments from non-foreign OCONUS locations to any location without such a limit, to a member whose weight allowance is under 2,500 pounds, or to a member assigned as a combatant command Senior Defense Official/Defense Attaché "unless otherwise directed by the source agency, or if the post is identified as a Special Shipment Allowance Post."
• There is a route to more. Par. 051402-C lets you request an exception through the Secretarial Process when the listed weight is insufficient, in five named circumstances — including that items normally furnished by the Government at the new PDS are unavailable, in which case the administrative allowance "is increased in an amount equal to the weight of personally owned substitute furnishings." Whatever is granted, the combined weight shipped and stored still cannot exceed your Table 5-37 allowance.

The 1,000-Pound Ceiling on Commercial Air

Separate from the weight allowance is a limit on how much of it can go by commercial air. Par. 051403-B authorizes expedited transportation of unaccompanied baggage "when necessary to enable the Service member to carry out assigned duties or to prevent undue hardship on the Service member or a dependent" — and then caps commercial air:

The unaccompanied baggage, including any PBP&E, is limited to a maximum of 1,000 pounds when transported by commercial air.

Note that pro-gear is inside that 1,000 pounds even though it is outside your weight allowance. The two limits measure different things and both apply at once.

Going over the air cap does not forfeit anything. The same paragraph says that if unaccompanied baggage is shipped by expedited commercial air, "the remaining weight, limited to the unaccompanied baggage weight allowance authorized in this paragraph, may be shipped by regular transportation methods." The overflow moves by regular methods instead; it does not disappear.

Can Pro-Gear Ship as Unaccompanied Baggage?

Yes. Par. 051304-A-5 says PBP&E "is transported the same way, and to the same authorized locations, as HHG. Transportation may be expedited when shipped as unaccompanied baggage." Its weight stays outside your allowance only if it is declared and documented as PBP&E, and if the baggage goes by commercial air, the pro-gear counts toward the 1,000-pound limit.

The paperwork step is the Note under par. 051403-B:

If the unaccompanied baggage shipment includes PBP&E or required medical equipment, the PBP&E and required medical equipment weight must be shown separately on the bill of lading.

A bill of lading that shows one combined weight leaves no pro-gear figure to set aside, and the paperwork is what the exclusion rests on. Par. 051304-A says PBP&E "must be declared at the origin of the shipment, and must be documented, to include certification or approval, according to Agency or Service transportation procedures," and par. 051304-A-5 says that an item which should be PBP&E but is not declared and documented as PBP&E before the move "is included in the HHG weight allowance."

Required medical equipment has a gate of its own and a better allowance behind it. Under par. 051304-B, a member or dependent entitled to, and receiving, medical care under 10 U.S.C. §§ 1071–1110 may ship the medical equipment necessary for that care, which "may be shipped in the same way as HHG, but has no weight limit," and its weight is not in the HHG allowance. The gate is par. 051304-B-2: "an appropriate Uniformed Services healthcare provider must certify that the equipment is necessary for medical treatment" of the member or the dependent authorized care. Par. 051304-B-1 rules out one item explicitly — "Required medical equipment does not include a modified personally owned vehicle."

What Cannot Go in Unaccompanied Baggage?

Beyond the furniture and major appliances Appendix A rules out, the JTR singles out one category by name. Section 0516 covers items of extraordinary value — "items of gold and other precious metals, jewels, valuable art, or rare and costly collections, and items of substantial value ordinarily worn or carried that are prone to being stolen, such as cameras and binoculars" — and says they may move by an expedited mode "and cannot be included in unaccompanied baggage."

Two further facts from the same section are worth knowing before you decide what to do with them. The net weight of an extraordinary-value shipment is still "included as part of the Service member's authorized PCS maximum weight allowance" — so routing a coin collection around unaccompanied baggage does not route it around the ceiling. And the section warns that irreplaceable items and those of extreme financial or sentimental value "are not given special security even though the Service member may purchase extra-value insurance." The practical reading is to keep this category with you wherever you can.

How Is the Weight of Unaccompanied Baggage Measured?

By net weight, determined under par. 051404 and Table 5-39. If the baggage is weighed before packing, its actual weight is what counts. If the Government arranges the shipment and its net weight is not known, Table 5-39 has a row for unaccompanied baggage alone: subtract 50% from the gross weight shown on the shipping document — a far larger deduction for packaging than a main shipment gets.

Table 5-39 sets out eight methods. Methods 5 through 7 are for Direct Procurement Method shipments; these are the rest:

Method	Situation	Net weight
1. Actual weight	Household goods and unaccompanied baggage are weighed before packing	The actual weight of the unpacked and uncrated goods
2. Government-arranged	The transporter weighs with the internal packing materials, and the unpacked actual weight is known	Use the actual weight method
3. Government-arranged	The transporter weighs with the internal packing materials, and the unpacked actual weight is not known	Subtract 10% of the net weight shown on the shipping documents
4. Unaccompanied baggage, government-arranged	The government arranges the unaccompanied baggage transportation and its net weight is not known	Subtract 50% from the gross weight shown on the shipping document
8. Not applicable	Nothing is weighed and the weight cannot be obtained	7 pounds per cubic foot, for all shipments

The gap between rows 3 and 4 is the one to notice. A main shipment weighed with its packing comes down by 10% of the net weight on its shipping documents; unaccompanied baggage whose net weight is not known comes down by half its gross weight. Par. 051404 treats these figures as allowances for tare — the weight of the packaging — and the one for unaccompanied baggage is by far the larger. If your shipping document shows 600 pounds gross for an unaccompanied baggage shipment and nobody recorded a net weight, the figure that should reach your allowance is 300.

Par. 051404 also leaves a valve open: the appropriate official, "ordinarily the Transportation Officer," may deviate from these allowances "on the rare occasion when, through no fault of the Service member, the shipment tare weight exceeds the allowances in Table 5-39." If the packaging plainly outweighs the table's deduction through no fault of yours, that sentence is the one to cite.

What Happens If Unaccompanied Baggage Puts You Over?

You pay for the excess. Par. 051306-A-2 says a member "must repay the Service for the cost of transporting his or her HHG in excess of the specified weight allowance" unless an increased weight allowance has been specifically authorized, and par. 051306-A-1 adds the line that closes off an appeal based on bad advice:

Erroneous advice, or lack of advice, by a Government agent does not create an entitlement to reimbursement of, or shipment of HHG in excess of the weight allowed by statute.

Par. 051306-A-4 goes further. The Transportation Officer should warn you when excess weight is known or suspected before the shipment moves — and you are "financially responsible for the excess weight charges even if the Transportation Officer did not notify" you or the official providing the transportation funds. The paragraph cites a Civilian Board of Contract Appeals decision for the proposition: CBCA 2076-RELO, October 5, 2010.

What goes into the bill is broader than freight. Par. 051306-A-3: "All transportation costs are included in determining excess costs, such as storage, accessorial services, and any other costs that the Government paid to move the HHG." For a single shipment with nothing in storage, to or from an area with no administrative weight restrictions, Table 5-36 row 1 computes the total transportation cost less unauthorized items, and then: "The cost of excess net weight is prorated based on the cost of total net weight transported."

When unaccompanied baggage travels alongside a main shipment, there is more than one shipment, and there the table leans your way. Rows 2 and 4 both direct that the excess be computed "on the shipment so that it results in the lowest cost to the Service member," and row 4 — for a move to or from an administratively weight-restricted area — describes an unaccompanied baggage mistake exactly: each individual shipment is within the administrative weight allowance, but added together they exceed your authorized weight allowance.

Is the Unaccompanied Baggage Allowance 350 Pounds Per Person?

Not for a Service member. That figure is real, but it is the civilian employee rule from a different part of the same chapter. Par. 054305-E-1 sets a civilian employee's unaccompanied baggage allowance at "350 pounds net weight for each adult and dependent age 12 or older and 175 pounds net weight for each child under age 12," with the total by air or any expedited mode limited to 1,000 pounds net weight to, from or between PDSs OCONUS. Par. 051403, which governs a Service member on PCS orders, contains no per-person figure of any kind.

The same per-person pair appears at par. 055007, for a DoDEA teacher on approved extended leave who performs renewal agreement travel for advanced studies at a university in the United States. A third civilian rule is flat rather than per-person: under par. 020505, a civilian employee on TDY of 31 days or more may be authorized unaccompanied baggage of up to 350 pounds, and no other household goods shipment. None of the three is written for an active-duty member.

If a calculator or checklist multiplies 350 by your family size and hands you a number, it is applying the civilian employee rule to a military move.

Who	Unaccompanied baggage allowance	Authority
Service member, PCS	Part of the Table 5-37 HHG allowance; separate caps only at an administrative weight limit location; 1,000 pounds by commercial air, pro-gear included	par. 051403
Civilian employee, PCS	350 pounds per adult and dependent 12 or older, 175 pounds per child under 12; 1,000 pounds net by air or any expedited mode to, from or between PDSs OCONUS	par. 054305-E-1
Civilian employee, TDY of 31 days or more	350 pounds, and no other household goods shipment	par. 020505
DoDEA teacher on extended leave, renewal agreement travel for advanced studies	350 pounds per adult and dependent 12 or older, 175 pounds per dependent under 12	par. 055007

The Situations With Their Own Rule

Five cases sit outside par. 051403, spread across Chapters 4, 5 and 6 of the regulation.

• Ordered to a hospital in the CONUS, without a prolonged-hospitalization statement. Par. 052010-A-1-a authorizes unaccompanied baggage "limited to 225 pounds gross weight" — gross, not net, so the packing counts against it. If the receiving hospital's commanding officer does issue the statement, par. 052010-A-1-b authorizes the same household goods transportation as a PCS instead.
• PCS to or from a ship deployed away from its home port. Unaccompanied baggage moves to the deployed ship, afloat staff or afloat unit (Table 5-43, under par. 052002-A-2) or from it (par. 052002-E-2) "without regard to distance."
• Dependent student travel to a school in the United States. Par. 050816-D-9 allows up to 350 pounds of unaccompanied baggage for each authorized trip between the school and your PDS, and makes you financially responsible for any overweight. Par. 050816-D-10 lets you store the student's unaccompanied baggage near the school instead of shipping it, also capped at 350 pounds, with the cost limited to what round-trip transportation would have cost.
• Evacuation. Table 6-20 runs on a different scheme entirely: to a safe haven, up to 350 pounds for each dependent 12 or older and 175 pounds for each under 12, capped at 1,000 pounds per family — and the Transportation Officer in the area being evacuated may approve an increase by commercial air of up to another 1,000 pounds, for a maximum of 2,000.
• Government-funded leave travel. Table 4-2 lists unaccompanied baggage as not authorized, alongside excess accompanied baggage and per diem. Leave travel is not a move.

Packing the Shipment, Knowing the Rule

The regulation decides the ceiling; you decide what goes under it. A few things follow directly from the paragraphs above:

• Subtract before you pack, not after. Find your Table 5-37 figure, decide your unaccompanied baggage target, and treat the difference as the main shipment's budget. The weight allowances page carries the table by grade and dependency status along with room-by-room estimates for exactly this arithmetic.
• Ask whether your destination is listed. It is a question for the transportation office with a documented answer, and it decides whether the par. 051403-A caps apply to you at all — they are conditioned on the destination carrying an administrative weight limit, and that limit comes from the published list rather than from anyone's recollection.
• Declare pro-gear at origin and check the bill of lading. Par. 051304-A requires pro-gear to be declared at origin and documented, and the Note to par. 051403-B requires its weight — and any required medical equipment's — to be shown separately on the bill of lading. Both happen at pickup, not at the claim.
• Keep the shipping documents. The gross weight on them is what Table 5-39 method 4 is applied to. If the 50% reduction was not taken, you cannot show it without the paperwork.
• Send what you need first. Appendix A's list is clothing, assignment equipment, essential cooking items, light housekeeping items and the cribs, playpens and baby carriages dependents need. Every pound sent ahead is a pound the main shipment no longer has.

Sources, and How They Were Read

Every rule above comes from the Joint Travel Regulations, edition 08/01/2026, published by the Per Diem, Travel, and Transportation Allowance Committee. The edition is named because the JTR is revised frequently, and every quotation here is from that edition's text. Par. 051403 and par. 051404 (p. 5C-12) and Table 5-39 (p. 5C-13) were extracted from the PDF's text layer and then confirmed a second time from the rendered pages, because a transposed figure in a weight rule is a bill a member pays.

The other sources cited, in the order they appear: JTR Appendix A for the definition of unaccompanied baggage; par. 051401 for what the Table 5-37 figure comprises; par. 051402 for administrative weight limits, the exemptions and the exception process; par. 051304 for PBP&E and required medical equipment; section 0516 for items of extraordinary value; par. 051306 with Table 5-36 for excess costs; par. 054305, par. 055007 and par. 020505 for the civilian employee allowances; and par. 052010, par. 052002, par. 050816, Table 6-20 and Table 4-2 for the special cases.

No dollar figure appears in this article. What going over costs you is a share of what the Government actually paid to move the shipment, under par. 051306 and Table 5-36, so there is no published number to quote. Every weight limit here is the regulation's own and is stated with the paragraph that sets it; the 1,200- and 600-pound shipments are illustrations.

One source could not be opened from where this was written: the Administrative HHG Weight Allowance Locations supplement to the JTR, published on the Defense Travel Management Office's website, which carries the actual list of restricted locations and the limit for each. The JTR's description of that list, the process that puts a location on it, and the sentence that restrictions for unlisted locations are not valid are all quoted above from the regulation. The list itself is a question for your transportation office.

Related Articles

• Weight allowances by rank, and what going over costs — the Table 5-37 figure this whole article is subtracted from
• OCONUS PCS move guide — the overseas move unaccompanied baggage exists for
• What counts as pro-gear, and how much of it — the shipment that rides on top of the allowance instead of inside it
• PCS storage options and what the government pays for — where the remainder goes when a destination is weight-limited
• Adding a trailer to your weight allowance — the other way a shipment quietly goes over
• Filing a PPM claim with weight tickets — how net weight is proved when you move yourself
• Every PCS entitlement under the JTR — the full picture this is one piece of