How long doesSugarlast in the pantry once opened?

The USDA rates 3 kinds of this separately

The USDA files 3 separate entries under this name — brown, granulated and confectioners — and gives every one of them the same window outside the freezer, 18 months to 24 months. They are separate rows in the source rather than separate answers to the question.

The methods the USDA actually rates for this item

The USDA rates only 1 of its nine storage methods anywhere in the 3 kinds it lists under this name, and the pantry after opening is what it rates. The other 8 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 in the pantry and nowhere else, one of 84 foods of the 466 it files that way. The source also indexes it as brown, granulated, confectioners and confectioner.

Sugar, brown

• In the pantryIndefinitely
• Once opened · in the pantry18 months to 24 months

Sugar, granulated

• In the pantryIndefinitely
• Once opened · in the pantry18 months to 24 months

Sugar, confectioners

• In the pantryIndefinitely
• Once opened · in the pantry18 months to 24 months

Where the USDA answers in words instead of days

1 of the nine slots the USDA keeps for this item holds an answer that is not a number, and an answer in words is still an answer: in the pantry it answers Indefinitely, so kept that way the food does not run out of time, though it can still lose quality.

What the USDA adds in words

The USDA attaches 3 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.

Sugar, brown, in the pantry. Sugar never spoils, but for best quality use within 2 years of opening.

Sugar, granulated, in the pantry. Sugar never spoils, but for best quality use within 2 years of opening.

Sugar, confectioners, in the pantry. Sugar never spoils, but for best quality use within 2 years of opening.

Turning the range into a date

Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 3 rows across the 3 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.

Sugar, brown

• Once opened · in the pantryUse by18 months to 24 months after the day you opened it

Sugar, granulated

• Once opened · in the pantryUse by18 months to 24 months after the day you opened it

Sugar, confectioners

• Once opened · in the pantryUse by18 months to 24 months after the day you opened it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 18 months to 24 months in the pantry once opened. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Sugar, granulated keeps there, so the figure rates how good it will be. 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 Sugar, granulated past its 18 months to 24 months in the pantry once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold takes the whole package out rather than the slice it grew on, and so does a musty or old-oil smell in a flour or a mix.

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?

2 items in the Baked Goods list keep exactly as long as Sugar, granulated, 24 months, so they all share place 18 of 52 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 68% of them.

Items that behave the same way

The 6 items nearest it sit inside a band of 24 months to 2 years — a tight cluster, and Sugar, granulated at 24 months is inside it.

• Cornstarchkeeps exactly as long
• Chocolate, unsweetened and semi-sweet, solidkeeps 1 year in the pantry once opened
• Cornmealkeeps 6 months sealed in the pantryregular, degerminated · up to 2 years in the pantry once opened
• Chili powderkeeps 2 years in the pantry once opened
• Whole wheat flourkeeps 2 years in the fridge
• Butter flavorkeeps 12 months in the pantry once openedup to 2 years in the pantry

Products the USDA rates in the same places

Only 3 other products in the whole file carry the same set of rated places as this one, pantry after opening: Cocoa and cocoa mixes, Cereal, dry mixes and Pectin. That is 3 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 Cocoa and cocoa mixes at 1 year.

• Cocoa and cocoa mixes1 year in the pantry once opened
• Cereal, dry mixes1 month in the pantry once opened
• Pectin1 month in the pantry once opened

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

• Cornstarch18 months in the pantry once opened
• Chocolate1 year in the pantry once opened
• Cornmeal6 months sealed in the pantryregular, degerminated · up to 2 years in the pantry once opened
• Vegetable oil sprays1 year in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Shortening6 months in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry

The rest of the Baking and Cooking shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Baking and Cooking shelf together with 34 others, and 17 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Baking soda at 3 years down to Herbs at 10 days. Nearest this product by window are Cornstarch, Chocolate and Cornmeal, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so Sugar, granulated sits here at 24 months rather than at the 18 months in the pantry once opened its own answer prints.

• Cornstarch24 months18 months in the pantry once opened
• Chocolate2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
• Cornmeal2 years6 months sealed in the pantry
• Vegetable oil sprays2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
• Shortening2 years6 months in the pantry once opened
• Chili powder2 years2 years in the pantry once opened
• Seasoning blends2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
• Sugar substitutes2 years2 years sealed in the pantry

If it has to keep longer than this

Nothing the USDA files under Baked Goods keeps at least twice as long as this one outside the freezer. It runs the other way: 28 entries in the category keep half as long or less, among them Fruit cake, Flour and Frosting or icing. So the question this page answers is not what to buy instead, but what this product outlasts on the same shelf, and by how much. Twice as long is the cutoff used here, so a product a few days apart from this one is not treated as a step.

• Fruit cake12 months6 months sealed in the pantry
• Flour12 months6 months in the pantry once opened
• Frosting or icing12 months2 weeks in the fridge once opened
• Gelatin12 months3 months in the pantry once opened
• Oils12 months3 months in the pantry once opened
• Nut oils12 months6 months in the fridge once opened
• Tamarind paste12 months6 months in the pantry once opened
• Tapiocas12 months12 months in the pantry once opened

The record this page is built from

The USDA publishes 3 separate rows under this name — records 239, 240 and 241 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 1 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Sugar, granulated, 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. 3 slots are answered in words instead of days, and printed as the source wrote it.

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: brown, confectioner, confectioners, granulated

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.