Brandon's passion for aviation started at a young age. He became involved in the flight simulator and VATSIM communities, which sparked his interest in aviation and eventually led him to earn his private pilot license. Outside of work, he continues to build flight hours, explore new airports, and stay involved in the aviation community.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screens roughly 3.3 million carry-on bags every day, and officers say the overwhelming majority of prohibited items they find belong to travelers who simply forgot something was packed. The agency also does not technically confiscate most of what it takes. Items left at checkpoints are classified as voluntarily abandoned property, because passengers choose to surrender them rather than miss a flight and return to the ticket counter.
There is no official ranking of what gets surrendered most. TSA stopped collecting data on prohibited items other than firearms and incendiaries in August 2008, according to Bureau of Transportation Statistics records. What exists instead are accounts from individual officers and statements from TSA spokespeople, which consistently point to the same handful of categories: water bottles, oversized toiletries, knives, tools, and firearms. Only the last category has published figures, and TSA detected 6,737 of them at checkpoints in 2023.
Water Bottles
The most surrendered item is water
The most frequently surrendered item at American airport checkpoints is a container of tap water. CBS News reported that bottles of water and firearms are the most frequently stopped items by TSA officials, putting an ordinary beverage container alongside the single most serious category the agency screens for. The reason is volume, not intent. TSA screens approximately 3.3 million carry-on bags every day, and even a small percentage of travelers forgetting to empty a bottle produces a very large number of bottles.
The rule is the 3-1-1 liquids rule, in force since 2006, which limits carry-on liquids to containers of 3.4 ounces (100 ml) or less that fit in a single quart-sized bag. A full water bottle exceeds that limit by a wide margin, and TSA's published guidance applies the restriction to the size of the container. Airports across the country have installed bottle-filling stations beyond the checkpoint, a practical workaround for travelers who want to carry one.
Nothing about this reflects a security judgment on the individual passenger. TSA officers describe the overwhelming majority of prohibited items they find as belonging to travelers who say they simply forgot to pack them. Water bottles are the clearest version of that pattern. The item is legal, ordinary, and in most cases the traveler's own reusable bottle rather than anything bought for the trip. It gets surrendered because the passenger reached the belt with it still full.
Oversized Toiletries And Fragrances
Anything that pours counts as a liquid
The 3-1-1 rule has been in place since 2006, and full-size toiletries remain one of the most consistent categories of surrendered property at American checkpoints. A TSA spokesperson told Reader's Digest that the most commonly surrendered items at airport security include oversized liquids, gels, and aerosols. Shampoo, conditioner, lotion, sunscreen, and shaving cream account for most of it. Former TSA officers have noted that oversized fragrances are also commonly confiscated, and they're a more expensive loss than a bottle of shampoo, one passengers are more likely to contest at the belt.
The definition causes more problems than the size limit. TSA classifies an item as a liquid based on its consistency rather than its intended use. Anything that pours, pumps, spreads, or squishes falls under the rule, pulling in products most travelers wouldn't describe as liquids. Peanut butter, jam, yogurt, hummus, gel deodorant, and toothpaste all follow the same 3.4-ounce (100 ml) container limit as a bottle of water. Frozen and steamed items count as liquids as well. A jar of peanut butter in a carry-on is not an unusual find at a checkpoint, and neither is a container of soup bought in the terminal before a connecting flight.
The rule is beginning to loosen in specific places. TSA's rollout of computed tomography scanners has allowed selected airports to relax the 3-1-1 restriction, because the 3D imaging those machines produce can identify liquid explosives that flat 2D X-ray units could not reliably detect. That change is airport by airport rather than nationwide, and at checkpoints still running older equipment, the 3.4-ounce limit applies exactly as it has for two decades. A full-size bottle that cleared security on an outbound flight can still be surrendered on the return, creating the kind of inconsistency that sparks arguments at the checkpoint and will persist until the CT rollout is complete.
Knives And Multi-Tools
No blade is small enough to qualify
TSA prohibits knives of any length in carry-on baggage, with plastic cutlery and rounded butter knives the only exceptions. The rule covers a wider range of objects than most travelers expect. Hunting knives, Swiss Army knives, keychain knives, credit card knives, tactical knives, and cake knives are all prohibited, as are box cutters and non-disposable razor blades. Multi-tools with blades fall under the same restriction, which catches passengers carrying a Leatherman or similar device.
The Points Guy spoke with a TSA agent at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport(BWI) who identified full-size liquids and knives as the two items agents most often see travelers attempting to bring through security. At checkpoints, officers encounter everything from small pocket knives to folding blades with belt clips and locking mechanisms. Daily Passport reported that, regardless of a traveler's intent, travelers must surrender knives and multi-tools or move them to a checked bag.
Every one of these items is permitted in checked baggage. TSA also offers to ship surrendered items back to the traveler at US shipping rates and at the passenger's expense, though most decline. The pattern matches the liquids category closely. These are rarely items brought with any intent to use them on an aircraft. They live permanently in a bag or pocket and get forgotten on the way to the airport.
Corkscrews And Tools Over Seven Inches
Hardware measured, not judged
Tools longer than seven inches are prohibited in carry-on baggage, a threshold that catches wrenches, pliers, hammers, and crowbars. The Points Guy, citing TSA, lists tools exceeding seven inches as a distinct prohibited category alongside liquids and blades. Tools shorter than that are generally permitted, creating a rule most travelers either don't know or cannot apply by eye while standing at the belt.
Corkscrews come up repeatedly in officer accounts. Many corkscrews include a small foil-cutting blade, which puts them in the same category as other bladed items rather than judging them by length.
The common thread in this category is that the items are not weapons in any conventional sense. They are hardware, kitchen equipment, and hobby tools that passengers pack without considering how a screener will classify them. A traveler carrying a multi-tool for work, a corkscrew from a vineyard visit, or a set of pliers in a repair kit is not attempting to evade security. The seven-inch rule and the blade prohibition are mechanical standards applied uniformly, and the items that fail them are overwhelmingly ordinary. All are permitted in checked baggage.
Firearms
The only category TSA publishes data on
Firearms are the only category on this list with published figures. TSA detected 6,737 firearms at airport security checkpoints in 2023 and 6,542 in 2022. During the first nine months of 2024, the agency recorded 5,028. In the third quarter of 2022, officers stopped 1,820 firearms, an average of 19.8 per day. Most are found in carry-on bags rather than at checked-baggage screening, the opposite of what the rules require. Those numbers come from an agency that publishes firearm interception data specifically because the category warrants tracking in a way forgotten shampoo does not.
Firearms are permitted on aircraft, but only in checked baggage, unloaded, locked in a hard-sided case, and declared to the airline at the ticket counter. TSA Administrator David Pekoske stated the position directly in 2022: "Firearms are prohibited at security checkpoints, in the secure area of an airport or in the passenger cabin of an aircraft even if a passenger has a concealed carry permit or is in a constitutional carry jurisdiction." A state permit does not create an exception, and neither does a constitutional carry law. The rule is federal and applies the same way at every checkpoint in the country, regardless of local firearm legislation.
The consequences separate firearms from everything else here. When officers detect a firearm at a checkpoint, they contact local law enforcement, who take possession of the weapon and may arrest or cite the passenger. TSA can issue a civil penalty reaching nearly $15,000. Passengers also lose TSA precheck eligibility and privileges for five years. Ammunition, gun magazines, whether loaded or empty, pepper spray, stun guns, and replica firearms are prohibited in carry-on as well, and items resembling real firearms, including Nerf guns, fall under the same restriction.