KeepsUntilSearch My fridgeDairy Products & Eggs · USDA FoodKeeper

How long do Eggs last in the fridge?

3 kinds · each with its own window

Eggs, in shell · Unopened · in the fridge

Use by3 weeks to 5 weeks

Counted from the day you bought it

Safety limit · past it, throw it out

How this date is worked out

From KeepsUntilIt is past the dateWhat to do when the window has run out, and when tasting is not a test Where these numbers come fromThe USDA source, the parse rules and what this site cannot tell you Every food on the siteOne page, every product, longest first

Turning the range into a date

Eggs (in shell) keep 3–5 weeks sealed in the fridge. Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 4 rows across the 3 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.

Eggs, in shell

Unopened · in the fridgeUse by3 weeks to 5 weeks after the day you bought it

Eggs, raw whites, yolks

In the freezerUse by12 months after the day you stored it
In the fridgeUse by2 days to 4 days after the day you stored it

Eggs, hard boiled cooked

In the fridgeUse by1 week after the day you stored it

The USDA rates 3 kinds of this separately

Eggs, raw whites, yolks keeps 2 days, which is shorter than the window this page answers with. The USDA files 3 separate entries under this name — in shell, raw whites, yolks and hard boiled cooked — and they do not keep for the same time: Eggs, raw whites, yolks holds 2 days to 4 days outside the freezer, Eggs, in shell holds 3 weeks to 5 weeks.

The methods the USDA actually rates for this item

The USDA rates only 3 of its nine storage methods anywhere in the 3 kinds it lists under this name, and the freezer, refrigerator and refrigerator from the day of purchase are what it rates. The other 6 slots are blank in every kind, and a blank is not a zero. On the same shelf it sits 10 of 31, between Butter at 2 months and Whipped cream, aerosol can at 4 weeks.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA rates this item cold or frozen and never at room temperature: no pantry figure exists for it, as for 222 of the 466 foods in the data that get no pantry time at all. The source also indexes it as in shell, shell, raw whites and yolks.

Eggs, in shell

In the freezernot recommended
Unopened · in the fridge3 weeks to 5 weeks

Eggs, raw whites, yolks

In the freezer12 months
In the fridge2 days to 4 days

Eggs, hard boiled cooked

In the freezernot recommended
In the fridge1 week

From KeepsUntilWhere these numbers come fromThe USDA source, the parse rules and what this site cannot tell you

Can you freeze eggs?

Some kinds, yes. The USDA gives eggs (raw whites, yolks) 12 months in the freezer; held at 0 °F food stays safe beyond that. For eggs (in shell) it advises against freezing. Never freeze eggs in the shell: they expand and crack. Beat them, or freeze whites and yolks separately.

How to tell if eggs have gone bad

Go by the date first: eggs keep 3–5 weeks sealed in the fridge. An egg that smells off when you crack it goes out. Cracked or dirty shells let bacteria in, so use such eggs only in dishes that cook them through.

Sources: USDA FSIS: the danger zone USDA FSIS: freezing and food safety USDA FSIS: shell eggs from farm to table 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 3 weeks to 5 weeks in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Eggs, in shell is an animal food, or made with one. Past it, it is not safe to eat: throw it out without tasting, because bacteria build up while food still looks and smells fine.

The figure in the freezer here is a quality window. The same page carries windows of more than one kind, so which sentence applies depends on which row you are reading, not on the food.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the calculator above puts Eggs, in shell past its 3 weeks to 5 weeks in the fridge window, or the container sat out on the counter overnight. Throw the container out without tasting it, and count any hours it already spent out of the refrigerator as part of that window rather than on top of it.

The USDA's limit for perishable food standing at room temperature is 2 hours, or 1 hour when the kitchen is above 90 °F, and that clock runs whatever the storage figure says. Freezing stops the clock but does not turn it back: food already past its window is not rescued by putting it in the freezer. 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

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 2 weeks to 4 weeks against the 5 weeks of Eggs, in shell, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

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.

Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Eggs, in shell, which is the kind the plain name means here, chosen kind by kind rather than by the order the source happens to list them in.

Also searched as: hard boiled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, boiled eggs

USDA index terms: boiled, egg, hard boiled, hard boiled cooked, in shell, raw whites, shell, whites, yolks

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.