How long doEggslast in the fridge?

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.

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

Turning the range into a date

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

Is this window about safety or about taste?

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, throw it out rather than taste it: a perishable food can carry enough bacteria to make you ill while it 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. 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 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 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.

Is that a long time?

Among the 29 items the USDA files under Dairy Products & Eggs, Eggs, in shell ranks 8 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Butter holds 2 months, Whipped cream, aerosol can holds 4 weeks. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 74% of them.

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.

• Whipped cream, aerosol cankeeps 3 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Pimento cheese, packagedkeeps 4 weeks in the fridge once opened
• Coffee creamerkeeps 3 weeks sealed in the fridgeliquid refrigerated
• Dips, sour cream basedkeeps 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Whipped toppingkeeps 2 weeks sealed in the fridgetub
• Yogurtkeeps 1 week sealed in the fridge

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, refrigerator and refrigerator from the day of purchase: Pate and Canadian bacon. 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 2 shown, 1 keeps longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Canadian bacon at 80 days.

• Pate1 day sealed in the fridge
• Canadian bacon10 days in the fridgesliced · up to 80 days sealed in the fridge

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

• Whipped topping2 weeks sealed in the fridgetub
• Yogurt1 week sealed in the fridge
• Cheese Curds2 weeks in the fridge
• Egg dishes3 days in the fridge
• Egg substitutes3 days in the fridge
• Whipped cream3 weeks sealed in the fridge

The rest of the Dairy Products & Eggs shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Dairy Products & Eggs shelf together with 28 others, and 7 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Powdered milk at 5 years down to Pudding at 2 days. Nearest this product by window are Whipped cream, Pimento cheese and Coffee creamer, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so Eggs, in shell sits here at 5 weeks rather than at the 3 weeks sealed in the fridge its own answer prints.

• Whipped cream4 weeks3 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Pimento cheese4 weeks4 weeks in the fridge once opened
• Coffee creamer3 weeks3 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Buttermilk2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
• Cottage cheese2 weeks1 week in the fridge once opened
• Cream cheese2 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Dips2 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Whipped topping2 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 5 weeks, the Dairy Products & Eggs aisle gives 6 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Vegan Cheddar Cheese at 4 months against this one's 5 weeks; after it come String Cheese, Margarine and Nacho cheese. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 18 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Buttermilk and Cottage cheese among them.

• Vegan Cheddar Cheese4 months3 days in the fridge once opened
• String Cheese5 months5 months sealed in the fridge
• Margarine6 months6 months sealed in the fridge
• Nacho cheese2 years2 weeks in the fridge once opened
• Ghee2 years1 year in the fridge
• Powdered milk5 years3 months in the pantry once opened

The record this page is built from

The USDA publishes 3 separate rows under this name — records 21, 22 and 23 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 3 of the nine storage slots with a time. 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. 1 slot is marked not recommended, which is an answer rather than a gap.

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: 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.