KeepsUntilSearch My fridgeProduce · USDA FoodKeeper

How long do Pumpkins last in the fridge?

From purchase · in the fridge

Use by3 months to 5 months

Counted from the day you bought it

Quality window · past it, judge it yourself

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

Pumpkins keep 3–5 months in the fridge from purchase. Counting 5 months forward from a date is not arithmetic anyone does reliably in their head. Give the field the day it went into storage.

From purchase · in the pantryUse by2 months to 3 months after the day you bought it
From purchase · in the fridgeUse by3 months to 5 months after the day you bought it

1.7×

What the pantry costs against the refrigerator150 days in the fridge from purchase ÷ 90 days in the pantry from purchase

The methods the USDA actually rates for this item

The USDA rates only 2 of its nine storage methods for this item, and the pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator from the day of purchase are what it rates. The other 7 slots are blank, and a blank is not a zero: it means no published figure, not that the method fails. On the same shelf it sits 5 of 89, between Tamarind at 6 months and Jicama, fresh at 4 months.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA gives this item a pantry and a refrigerator figure and no freezer figure at all, the pattern behind 79 of the 466 foods in the data. Within Produce it is filed under Fresh Vegetables.

From purchase · in the pantry2 months to 3 months
From purchase · in the fridge3 months to 5 months

Can you freeze pumpkins?

The USDA prints no freezer time for pumpkins. Frozen at 0 °F any food stays safe; whether they are still good after thawing is a matter of quality. Keep the fridge at 40 °F or below and the freezer at 0 °F.

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

How to tell if pumpkins have gone bad

Go by the date first: pumpkins keep 3–5 months in the fridge. Mold, slime, a sour smell or soft dark spots mean it goes out; firm produce can be saved by cutting 1 inch around a small moldy spot, soft produce cannot. Refrigerate cut or peeled produce within 2 hours.

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 3 months to 5 months in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Pumpkins is raw and whole. 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 Pumpkins past its 3 months to 5 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.

Two places, and one of them is the wrong one

The USDA rates two places for Pumpkins in one state and they disagree: 3 months to 5 months in the fridge against 2 months to 3 months in the pantry. This page answers with the refrigerator, the longer of the two. Both figures are the USDA's own, so this is a choice of where to put the food rather than a disagreement about how long it keeps.

Items that behave the same way

The 6 items below are the closest match to this item by storage behavior, running 2 months to 6 months and bracketing its 5 months.

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.

USDA index terms: pumpkin

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.