How long does Margarine last in the fridge?
Turning the range into a date
Margarine keeps 6 months sealed in the fridge. Counting 6 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 by12 months after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by6 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: 2 times what the sealed fridge gives, 6 months against 12 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 4 of 31, between Ghee at 2 years and Cheese at 6 months.
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.
- In the freezer12 months
- Unopened · in the fridge6 months
Can you freeze margarine?
Yes. The USDA gives margarine 12 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 margarine has gone bad
Go by the date first: margarine keeps 6 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 6 months in the fridge. Margarine 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 Margarine past its 6 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
Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 5 weeks to 6 months against the 6 months of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.
- Cheesekeeps exactly as long
- String Cheesekeeps 5 months sealed in the fridge
- Vegan Cheddar Cheesekeeps 3–7 days in the fridge once openedup to 4 months sealed in the fridge
- Milkkeeps 7–10 days in the fridge once openedultra-pasteurized · up to 3 months in the fridge
- Butterkeeps 1–2 months sealed in the fridge
- Eggskeeps 3–5 weeks sealed in the fridgein shell
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.