---
title: "Does Eggs expire? Degrades in quality"
description: "Eggs stay usable for weeks past the date on the box, and the float test tells you about age rather than safety. What actually changes over time, whether it matters, "
url: https://atoneplace.net/does-it-expire/eggs/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Does Eggs expire?

**Does Eggs expire?: Eggs stay usable for weeks past the date on the box, and the float test tells you about age rather than safety.**

3-5 weeks refrigerated past the pack date

An egg loses moisture and gains air through its porous shell over time, which is why an old egg floats — the air cell has grown. That is a test of age, not of spoilage, and a floating egg is not necessarily unsafe. What matters far more is whether the eggs were washed: American eggs are washed at packing, which removes the natural cuticle and makes refrigeration mandatory, while most European eggs are unwashed and keep their cuticle, which is why they sit unrefrigerated in shops and should stay that way at home. Moving an unrefrigerated egg into the fridge and back out again causes condensation, which is worse than either.

## How to store it

- Follow whatever the shop did. Refrigerated eggs stay refrigerated; unrefrigerated ones can stay out.
- Keep them in the box rather than the door — the door is the warmest part of a fridge.

## How to tell it has gone

- A genuinely bad egg announces itself the moment you crack it. Trust your nose over any date.
- A floating egg is old, not necessarily off. Crack it into a separate bowl first.

> "Use by" and "best before" are legally different. Use-by is a safety date and should be respected; best-before is about quality, and food is usually fine well past it. Where the two diverge matters, the page above says which applies.

## Common questions

### Does Eggs expire?

Eggs stay usable for weeks past the date on the box, and the float test tells you about age rather than safety.

### How long does Eggs last?

3-5 weeks refrigerated past the pack date

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## Sources

- Food Safety and Inspection Service — US Department of Agriculture (https://www.fsis.usda.gov/) [Public domain (US Government)]