Two entry points, one of them a listing that has run since 2010-12-20
The page states that the airport's online lost-property listing system went into service on 2010-12-20, and that someone who has lost an item at Capital Airport should either use the lost-property listing search or telephone the terminal lost-and-found office. Those two are given in parallel, so neither is a precondition for the other.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
Items are listed online for 1 year, counted from the day they were picked up
Every item received by the lost-and-found office is listed online for 1 year, and the page is explicit that the period runs from the date the item was picked up — not from the date the owner reports the loss. Beyond 1 year the page asks the owner to telephone the terminal lost-and-found office instead of searching the listing.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
The end point, as the airport states it under the Civil Code
The notice closes on where an unclaimed item ends up: under the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China, a lost item that no one claims within 1 year from the day the lost-property announcement is published becomes the property of the state and is turned over to the state treasury according to law, and the lost-and-found office no longer provides a search or return service. Note the starting point in this sentence — the day the announcement is published — which is a different starting point from the 1 year online listing counted from the day of pick-up. The two are kept apart here because the page keeps them apart.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
The notice is signed by the airport police, dated 2021-01-01
The lost-property online listing notice on this page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau, and its date is written out in Chinese characters for 1 January 2021. That matters for reading the rest of the page: the authority behind the procedure is a police body, not a commercial airport department. The contact details, the food time limits, the foreign-carrier section and the courier process carry no separate dates of their own, so every figure on this page is dated by the day this site read it.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
The scope is inside the terminals
The first item of the claim notice frames the whole procedure as applying to an item lost inside a Capital Airport terminal building. That is the boundary the page draws for itself, and this page does not stretch it — not to checked baggage, which the page never mentions, and not to any other airport.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
Collecting in person: originals, and the ticket if you lost it on the way in
The fourth item of the claim notice is the one that matters most to a foreign visitor. An owner collecting a lost item in person needs to bring the original of a valid document — the notice names an identity card or a passport side by side — and, where the item was lost on transport into or out of the airport, must also produce the relevant ticket, naming air tickets, boarding passes, airport bus tickets and airport express rail tickets, and give seat details in as much detail as possible. The item is returned once the details have been verified and the formalities completed.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
Sending someone else: a hand-signed authorisation and two sets of documents
The fifth item of the claim notice covers collection by another person: a letter of authorisation signed by the owner in their own hand, the original of the owner's valid document such as an identity card or passport — or a photocopy of it — and the original of the collector's valid document. The asymmetry is in the text: the owner's document may be a copy, the collector's must be an original. Where the item was lost on transport into or out of the airport, the collector also produces the ticket and the seat details.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
Where the offices are, and the hours
Two offices are listed. For Terminal 2 the service location is the basement level of Terminal 2; for Terminal 3 it is inside the passenger service centre on the west side of level 1 of the T3-GTC. Both give the same service telephone number, 010-96158, which is also the airport service hotline printed at the top of the page, and both give service hours of 24 hours. The page lists no lost-and-found office for Terminal 1.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
Food is held on a four-tier clock and then destroyed
A separate section sets holding periods for lost food in order to standardise terminal lost-property management and guard against food safety risks, stating that items held beyond the period are destroyed under the rules. Fresh unprocessed natural foods — seafood, meat, fruit, vegetables and eggs — are held 24 hours. Frozen foods and dairy products, including frozen fish and prawns, meat, fresh milk, milk powder and cheese, are held 48 hours. Baked goods made mainly from flour or rice flour, bran, fats, eggs and milk, including fried foods, bread, cakes and pastries, are held 5 days. Vacuum-packed items — biscuits, chocolate, puffed snacks, meat, vegetables and seafood in vacuum packaging — are held 10 days.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
Destroying food needs police approval, which is the police appearing a second time
The sentence that closes the food section states that once the holding periods are reached the food is destroyed collectively with the approval of the police station, and asks passengers to claim items promptly. Together with the police signature on the notice, that is two separate points in one airport's published procedure where a public security body is inside the process rather than beside it.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
An item left in a foreign carrier's cabin is not the airport's to return
The page splits custody explicitly. Where an item is lost inside the cabin of a foreign airline, then because different carriers apply different requirements and standards, the whole process of keeping, dealing with and returning the item is managed and handled independently by that foreign carrier, and the lost-and-found office can help the passenger make contact and chase it up. Passengers are directed to contact the official customer service of the carrier concerned to follow up the search. So the question to settle first is where the item was left: in the terminal, or on the aircraft.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
Courier collection: the airport does not decide what can be sent
Where the owner cannot attend in person, the page allows them to authorise a courier company to collect the item on their behalf, and states that the range of items that can be collected this way is governed by the courier company's own acceptance rules. The airport publishes no list of its own. The second of the five steps is the airport-side gate in the process: the owner confirms the item's details with the lost-and-found office and that the item can be couriered.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
The courier route takes electronic copies, where attending in person takes originals
The courier steps require the hand-signed authorisation form and an electronic copy of a valid document to be sent to the courier company or to the T2/T3 service mailbox, bcatlfzx@163.com. The template is published on the page as a download named as an authorisation confirmation form for a lost item, and one mailbox serves both T2 and T3. Read against the in-person route, which requires document originals, the courier route is the one that works from outside the country.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)
The listing is updated on working days only
The third item of the claim notice sets the rhythm of the online listing: during working days, Monday to Friday, the lost-property listing is updated daily; outside working days, at weekends and on public holidays, updates roll over to the next working day and are made in one batch. An item lost on a Saturday may therefore not appear in the listing until the following week, which is worth knowing before concluding that it was never handed in.
Official source: Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd (www.bcia.com.cn), Facilities and Services; the public-notice section of the page is signed by the Capital Airport Public Security Bureau — 失物招领 — Lost and Found, Beijing Capital International Airport (carrying the 首都机场失物招领网上公示公告 notice signed 首都机场公安局) (source 2021-01-01; read October 9, 2026)