Can you cross the CBX bridge right now?

Up to 24 hours before your Tijuana departure, and no earlier. That covers the case people most often doubt — crossing the night before a dawn flight — but it also means there is nothing to gain from turning up two days out. The other end of the window catches more people: CBX asks you to be at its counters 60 minutes before departure, so the crossing effectively closes an hour before your flight, not at the gate time.

2 hours from when your flight arrives. The clock runs from the actual landing, so a flight that gets in forty minutes late has already spent forty minutes of it, and time at the baggage carousel comes out of the same budget. This is the shorter and less forgiving of the two windows.

You lose the bridge for that arrival. Do not leave the baggage claim area. Once you exit it you cannot reach the CBX bridge for that arrival. This is the single most expensive mistake available at CBX because nothing physically stops you doing it — you simply walk out of the terminal, and then the only way into San Diego is a land border crossing at San Ysidro or Otay Mesa. Stay in the arrivals area and follow the CBX signs before you do anything else.

No, unless you bought a round trip. A CBX ticket is single use and valid only in the direction printed on it, so a southbound ticket will not get you back north. Everyone from age 2 needs their own; a younger child needs no ticket but cannot cross without an adult who has one.

The published sources do not line up on this, so we will not give you one number. CBX's own requirements page attaches payment of migratory rights if your stay is longer than 6 days, or if you have a layover in Mexico. Volaris attaches the FMM form if your stay in Mexico is seven days or longer, or if you have a layover. Those are adjacent obligations described at thresholds a day apart, and picking one would mean being confidently wrong at exactly the point where being wrong costs you the trip. If your stay is anywhere near a week, or you have a layover in Mexico, check both pages before you travel.

Going south into Tijuana, a valid passport plus the FMM paperwork above, your boarding pass and your CBX ticket. Coming north into San Diego, a valid passport, a valid US visa, your boarding pass and your CBX ticket — and a prepaid provisional I-94 if you are travelling more than 25 miles from the border or staying more than 30 days. The I-94 has to be done before you cross, not at the far end.

Flights operated by Mexican carriers out of Tijuana fall under Mexican law rather than US rules, which is a genuinely different regime — it can require compensation for long delays and cancellations that US rules do not. Which one applies depends on the carrier and the route, not on which side of the bridge you bought the ticket. Our Mexico page sets out what the Ley de Aviación Civil requires.

No, and this is the risk that comes with the saving. A San Diego flight and a Tijuana flight bought separately are two unconnected tickets: if the first runs late and you miss the second, no airline is obliged to fix it, because neither one sold you a connection. Give yourself far more slack than a normal layover, and understand that the bridge crossing itself is inside that margin.