How long doPumpkinslast in the fridge?
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.
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.
- Unopened · in the pantry2 months to 3 months
- Unopened · in the fridge3 months to 5 months
Turning the range into a date
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.
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by2 months to 3 months after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by3 months to 5 months after the day you bought it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
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, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.
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 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 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 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.
Is that a long time?
Among the 89 items the USDA files under Produce, this item ranks 5 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Tamarind holds 6 months, Jicama, fresh holds 4 months. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 83% of them.
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.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
9 other products are rated in exactly these places — pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator from the day of purchase — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Soy flour, Jicama and Tapenade. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the 8 shown, 3 keep longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Almond oil at 2 years.
- Soy flour6 months sealed in the fridge
- Jicama4 months sealed in the pantry
- Tapenade9 months sealed in the fridge
- Citrus fruit10 days sealed in the pantry
- Coconuts2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Artichokes1 week sealed in the fridge
- Taro7 days sealed in the pantry
- Almond oil2 years sealed in the fridge
The rest of the Fresh Vegetables shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Fresh Vegetables shelf together with 58 others, and 2 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Kimchi at 12 months down to Corn on the cob at 2 days. Nearest this product by window are Tamarind, Jicama and Onions, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so this item sits here at 5 months rather than at the 3 months sealed in the fridge its own answer prints.
- Tamarind6 months6 months sealed in the fridge
- Jicama4 months4 months sealed in the pantry
- Onions2 months2 months sealed in the fridge
- Potatoes2 months1 month sealed in the pantry
- Spaghetti squash2 months2 months in the pantry
- Baby carrots4 weeks4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Carrots3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Ginger root3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 5 months, Produce offers 3 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Dates at 12 months against this one's 5 months, and the rest are Kimchi and Coconut. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 82 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Cranberries and Onions among them. The largest step the category offers is Coconut at 1 year.
- Dates12 months12 months sealed in the fridge
- Kimchi12 months6 months sealed in the fridge
- Coconut1 year8 months in the fridge once opened
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 298 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 2 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the binding figure on it is printed by the source in months, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. It is filed under Fresh Vegetables inside Produce, which is where every shelf comparison on this page comes from.
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: 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.