How long doesCoffeelast in the fridge once opened?

The USDA rates 4 kinds of this separately

Coffee, home ground, non-vacuum keeps 3 weeks, which is shorter than the window this page answers with. The USDA files 4 separate entries under this name — whole beans, home ground, non-vacuum, instant and commercial ground, non-vacuum — and they do not keep for the same time: Coffee, whole beans holds 3 months to 5 months outside the freezer, Coffee, commercial ground, non-vacuum holds 2 years.

What opening the package actually costs

Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 2 years sealed in the pantry; once open it holds 1 month open in the fridge, the same food measured in months instead of years, a drop of 24 times.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

All three places the USDA recognizes are rated here — pantry, refrigerator and freezer — which only 65 of the 466 foods in the data manage. The source also indexes it as whole beans, beans, whole and bean.

Coffee, whole beans

• Unopened · in the pantry3 months to 5 months
• Once opened · in the pantry3 months to 5 months
• Once opened · in the fridge3 months to 4 months

Coffee, home ground, non-vacuum

• In the freezer1 year to 2 years
• Unopened · in the pantry3 months to 5 months
• Once opened · in the pantry3 weeks to 5 weeks

Coffee, instant

• Unopened · in the pantry1 year
• Once opened · in the pantry2 months to 3 months

Coffee, commercial ground, non-vacuum

• In the freezer6 months to 12 months
• Unopened · in the pantry2 years
• Once opened · in the pantry2 weeks
• Once opened · in the fridge1 month

What the USDA adds in words

The USDA attaches 2 handling notes to this item, reproduced below word for word. None of them is a storage time: they qualify the figures above rather than replacing them. 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.

Coffee, commercial ground, non-vacuum, in the freezer. Do not return to freezer once taken out.

Coffee, commercial ground, non-vacuum, in the refrigerator. Critical to be stored in an airtight container.

Turning the range into a date

Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 12 rows across the 4 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.

Coffee, whole beans

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by3 months to 5 months after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the pantryUse by3 months to 5 months after the day you opened it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by3 months to 4 months after the day you opened it

Coffee, home ground, non-vacuum

• In the freezerUse by1 year to 2 years after the day you stored it
• Unopened · in the pantryUse by3 months to 5 months after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the pantryUse by3 weeks to 5 weeks after the day you opened it

Coffee, instant

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by1 year after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the pantryUse by2 months to 3 months after the day you opened it

Coffee, commercial ground, non-vacuum

• In the freezerUse by6 months to 12 months after the day you stored it
• Unopened · in the pantryUse by2 years after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the pantryUse by2 weeks after the day you opened it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by1 month after the day you opened it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 1 month in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Coffee, commercial ground, non-vacuum is acid, dry, sweet, alcoholic or pure fat. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.

Held at 0 °F food stays safe for as long as it stays frozen, which is why a freezer figure counts as quality on this site whatever the food is. Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the calculator above puts Coffee, commercial ground, non-vacuum past its 1 month in the fridge once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Fizzing that should not be there, cloudiness, floating strands or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.

The FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. 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 Coffee, commercial ground, non-vacuum in one state and they disagree: 1 month in the fridge once opened against 2 weeks in the pantry once opened. 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.

Is that a long time?

2 items in the Beverages list keep exactly as long as Coffee, commercial ground, non-vacuum, 2 years, so they all share place 4 of 22 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 81% of them.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 18 months to 2 years against the 2 years of Coffee, commercial ground, non-vacuum, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• White winekeeps exactly as long
• Diet powder mixes and drink mixeskeeps 1 month in the pantry once openedup to 24 months sealed in the pantry
• Nectar, papaya, mango, guava, or guavabanakeeps 12 months sealed in the pantry
• Lime juicekeeps 2 months in the fridge once openedup to 18 months sealed in the pantry
• Lemon juicekeeps 2 months in the fridge once openedup to 18 months sealed in the pantry
• Vegetable juicekeeps 18 months sealed in the pantryshelf-stable

Products the USDA rates in the same places

Only 2 other products in the whole file carry the same set of rated places as this one, freezer, pantry from the day of purchase, pantry after opening and refrigerator after opening: Nuts and Crackers. That is 2 products out of 466, which makes this a rare shape of record rather than a common one, and it is worth knowing that the comparison below is drawn from a very small group. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does. The longest-keeping of them is Nuts at 1 year.

• Nuts2 months in the pantry once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Crackers3 months in the fridge once openedup to 8 months sealed in the pantry

Closest by shape, but not an exact match — they share most of these places, not all of them.

• Lemon juice2 months in the fridge once openedup to 18 months sealed in the pantry
• Yuzu juice3 months in the fridge once openedup to 12 months sealed in the fridge
• Fruit Juice in cartons8 days in the fridge once openedup to 3 weeks sealed in the pantry
• Diet powder mixes and drink mixes1 month in the pantry once openedup to 24 months sealed in the pantry
• Lime juice2 months in the fridge once openedup to 18 months sealed in the pantry
• Vegetable juice18 months sealed in the pantryshelf-stable

The rest of the Beverages shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Beverages shelf together with 21 others, and 3 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Red wine at 5 years down to Soda at 3 days. Nearest this product by window are White wine, Diet powder mixes and drink mixes and Nectar, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Beverages the same product ranks 4 of 22. The middle of the shelf is Yuzu juice, at 12 months. 2 products on this shelf publish no window outside the freezer and stay out of the order.

• White wine2 years1 day in the fridge once opened
• Diet powder mixes and drink mixes24 months1 month in the pantry once opened
• Nectar18 months12 months sealed in the pantry
• Lime juice18 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Lemon juice18 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Vegetable juice18 months18 months sealed in the pantry
• Tea36 months6 months in the pantry once opened
• Coconut water12 months1 day in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 2 years, Beverages offers 2 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Red wine at 5 years against this one's 2 years, and the rest are Nutrition supplement drinks. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 12 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Coconut water and Yuzu juice among them. The largest step the category offers is Nutrition supplement drinks at 5 years.

• Red wine5 years1 day in the fridge once opened
• Nutrition supplement drinks5 years2 days in the fridge once opened

The record this page is built from

The USDA publishes 4 separate rows under this name — records 400, 401, 402 and 541 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 4 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Coffee, commercial ground, non-vacuum, 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. The record carries 2 handling notes, quoted on this page word for word.

Where these numbers come from

Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.

Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.

Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.

Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.

USDA index terms: bean, beans, commercial ground, ground, home, home ground, instant, non vacuum, non-vacuum, vacuum, whole, whole beans

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.