How long does Butter last in the fridge?
Turning the range into a date
Butter keeps 1–2 months sealed in the fridge. Counting 2 months forward from a date is not arithmetic anyone does reliably in their head. Give the field the day it went into storage.
- In the freezerUse by6 months to 9 months after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by1 month to 2 months after the day you bought it
The freezer helps less here than you would expect
The freezer buys less here than its reputation suggests: 4.5 times what the sealed fridge gives, 2 months against 9 months, both still measured in months. For this item freezing is an extension rather than a different way of keeping it. On the same shelf it sits 9 of 31, between Milk at 3 months and Eggs at 5 weeks.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA publishes no pantry storage time for this item, only a note about how long it may stand out, so the 2 figures that exist are all cold ones.
- In the freezer6 months to 9 months
- Unopened · in the fridge1 month to 2 months
What the USDA adds in words
The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is not a storage time: it qualifies the figure above rather than replacing it. These are the source's own sentences, not ours, and they are the part of the FoodKeeper record that a table of durations cannot carry.
In the pantry. May be left at room temperature for 1 - 2 days.
Can you freeze butter?
Yes. The USDA gives butter 6–9 months in the freezer from the day you buy it, and held at 0 °F food stays safe beyond that: the figure is about quality. Dairy can separate or turn grainy once thawed, so frozen it is better cooked with than eaten as it was.
How to tell if butter has gone bad
Go by the date first: butter keeps 1–2 months sealed in the fridge. Sour or off smell, lumps in milk or cream, and mold mean it goes out. On hard cheese, cut away 1 inch around a moldy spot; soft cheese with mold goes out whole.
Sources: USDA FSIS: the danger zone USDA FSIS: freezing and food safety USDA FSIS: molds on food FDA: are you storing food safely FoodSafety.gov: the FoodKeeper app.
Is it still safe to eat, or just past its best?
The answer at the top of this page reads 1 month to 2 months in the fridge. Butter does spoil, but a bacterial limit runs in days and this window runs past six weeks: the figure rates how good it will be. Past it, whether it has gone bad is yours to judge by look and smell: this window rates quality, not the day it turns hazardous.
It is past the date. Now what?
Say the calculator above puts Butter past its 1 month to 2 months in the fridge window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold, a slimy or sticky surface, soft or darkened spots, or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.
The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.
Items that behave the same way
The 6 items below are the closest match to this item by storage behavior, running 2 weeks to 3 months and bracketing its 2 months.
- Eggskeeps 3–5 weeks sealed in the fridgein shell
- Milkkeeps 7–10 days in the fridge once openedultra-pasteurized · up to 3 months in the fridge
- Whipped cream, aerosol cankeeps 3–4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Pimento cheese, packagedkeeps 4 weeks in the fridge once opened
- Coffee creamerkeeps 3 weeks sealed in the fridgeliquid refrigerated
- Cream cheesekeeps 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
Where these numbers come from
Every storage time on this page is the USDA’s own published figure from the FoodKeeper data, one of the 9 it keeps per food, reproduced unchanged and never an estimate of ours. Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, each kind keeps its own windows, and the page names the kind its answer is for. The dates and multipliers are ours, computed from those ranges.
Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page. How the site is built is on the method page.
KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.