How long do eggs last? Storage times and the float test explained
How long eggs keep in the fridge, why the carton matters more than the door, what the float test actually tells you, and how to store hard-boiled eggs safely.
Eggs are the food people are least sure about. The date on the carton feels vague, everyone has heard of the float test, and half the advice you find contradicts the other half. Here's what the guidance actually says.
The short answer
Kept refrigerated, raw eggs in their shell stay good for about three weeks — the USDA's guidance is to use them within three weeks for best quality. Hard-cooked eggs are a different story: they last about one week, and the clock is much less forgiving.
| Egg | Fridge | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Raw, in shell | ~3 weeks | Keep in the original carton |
| Hard-cooked, in shell | ~1 week | Refrigerate within 2 hours of cooking |
| Cracked or leaking | Discard | Don't risk it, whatever the date says |
Cooking an egg doesn't extend its life — it shortens it. Boiling removes the shell's natural protective coating, so a hard-boiled egg spoils faster than a raw one.
Keep them in the carton, off the door
Two storage mistakes account for most prematurely bad eggs.
The door is the wrong place. Every fridge has a moulded egg tray in the door, and it's the worst spot in the appliance: the door swings into room temperature several times a day, so its contents cycle through the warmest temperatures in the fridge. Eggs belong in the coldest part, on an inner shelf. Any bacteria present in an egg multiplies quickly when it warms up.
Leave them in the carton. The carton isn't just packaging. It shields the eggs from absorbing odours through their porous shells, cushions them, and — usefully — carries the date. Transferring eggs to a bare tray throws that information away.
Your fridge should be at 4°C or below for any of this to hold. If you've never measured yours, a cheap fridge thermometer is worth more than any storage tip.
What the float test actually tells you
Put an egg in a glass of water:
- Lies flat on the bottom — fresh.
- Stands on one end — older, but fine.
- Floats — the air cell inside has grown large enough to make it buoyant.
Here's the part almost every version of this tip gets wrong. A floating egg is a sign of poor quality, not proof that it's unsafe. The USDA's own guidance is to crack a floating egg into a bowl and judge it there: an off odour or unusual appearance means discard it; otherwise it may be perfectly good to cook.
So the float test dates the egg. It doesn't convict it. An egg loses moisture through its shell over time and the air pocket grows — that's ageing, which is not the same thing as spoilage.
The date on the carton isn't a safety date
Egg cartons usually carry a best-before or "sell-by" style date, and neither is a safety cut-off. A sell-by date is a stock note aimed at the shop, not at you, and a best-before date is the manufacturer's quality opinion. Eggs stored properly are routinely fine past it — which is exactly why the three-week guidance is framed as best quality rather than safe until.
If you want the full picture on which dates are safety limits and which aren't, we cover it in what an expiry date really means.
When to be stricter
The relaxed reading above assumes healthy adults eating cooked eggs. Raise your caution in two cases:
- Runny yolks and raw-egg preparations — homemade mayonnaise, mousse, some dressings. These carry more risk than a fully cooked egg, and the risk falls hardest on pregnant people, young children, older adults and anyone immunocompromised.
- A cracked shell. A crack is an open door for bacteria. It doesn't matter how recent the date is.
Where eggs fit in the rest of your fridge
Eggs are one line in a much bigger picture. For every other shelf, see our fridge shelf-life chart; for what happens once a package is opened, how long opened products last covers the shift from printed date to real-world clock.
And if remembering which carton is three weeks old is the actual problem — that's what freshIt is for. It reads your grocery receipt, dates each item, and reminds you before anything needs the float test at all.
Related reading
Sources
- Shell Eggs from Farm to TableUSDA Food Safety and Inspection Service
- What You Need to Know About Egg SafetyU.S. Food and Drug Administration
- Cold Food Storage ChartsFoodSafety.gov (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services)
- Food Product DatingUSDA Food Safety and Inspection Service
General information for household use, based on the sources above. It does not replace the storage and use-by instructions printed on the product, and it is not medical advice. When in doubt about a food, throw it out.