Raw bacon lasts 1 week in the fridge and 1 month in the freezer.
How long it keeps — Raw
Fridge times are safety windows — past them, discard it, even if it looks or smells fine. Freezer times are quality windows; food held at 0°F stays safe indefinitely while texture and flavor decline (FoodSafety.gov / USDA FSIS). Not medical advice.
Cooked bacon lasts 4–5 days in the fridge and about 1 month in the freezer.
How long it keeps — Cooked
Fridge times are safety windows — past them, discard it, even if it looks or smells fine. Freezer times are quality windows; food held at 0°F stays safe indefinitely while texture and flavor decline (FoodSafety.gov / USDA FSIS). Not medical advice.
How to store bacon
Bacon keeps one week refrigerated whether or not the package is open, which surprises people who assume the sealed pack lasts longer. Once the vacuum seal is broken, rewrap it tightly or move it to an airtight container — the curing salts slow bacteria but do nothing to stop the fat oxidizing in open air.
The freezer window is unusually short at about one month, and it is worth arranging your storage around that. Roll individual strips and freeze them separated, or freeze in portions you will actually use at once, because you cannot thaw a solid brick of bacon partway.
Cooked bacon keeps 4–5 days refrigerated and freezes better than raw. Rendered bacon fat, strained into a jar, keeps for months in the refrigerator.
By state & packaging
Why bacon goes bad
Bacon fails by a different mechanism from the rest of this category, which is why its numbers look strange next to them.
The curing salts — sodium chloride and sodium nitrite — substantially suppress bacterial growth. That is the entire point of curing, and it is why bacon gets a week in the fridge while fresh pork gets a few days. But nothing in the cure protects against oxidation of the fat, and bacon is roughly half fat by weight.
Fat oxidation is a chemical reaction with oxygen, not a biological process, so freezing slows it but does not stop it. This is why bacon carries a one-month freezer recommendation while lean pork chops get twelve. The bacon is still perfectly safe after a month at 0°F — it simply develops the stale, cardboard-like rancid flavor that no amount of cooking will hide.
So the two failure modes give you two different signals. Rancidity is a quality problem you will taste. Sliminess, a sour smell, or green-gray discoloration means bacterial spoilage has beaten the cure, and that is a discard.
Signs it has gone bad
Any of these means discard it. Do not taste food to check — spoilage smells are imperfect, and some pathogens do not change odor or appearance (USDA FSIS / CDC). Past the fridge safety window above, discard it even without these signs.
What the date on the package means
Bacon packages usually carry a "sell by" or "use by" style date. For FSIS-regulated products, those dates are about quality and store display unless the manufacturer’s instructions say otherwise — they are not a substitute for the cold-storage chart. Opened or unopened raw bacon still follows about 1 week in the fridge. Past that window, freeze or discard it even if the package date looks generous. Freezer quality for bacon is short (~1 month) because of fat rancidity, separate from any printed date.
FAQ
How long is bacon good after opening the package?
One week in the refrigerator, opened or unopened. Freeze what you won’t use within a week.
Why does bacon only last 1 month in the freezer?
It stays safe longer, but the high fat content turns rancid and the quality drops fast. USDA recommends 1 month for best quality.
Is bacon still good after the package date?
Package dates are usually quality or sell-by language, not a free pass past one week refrigerated. If bacon is slimy, sour, or oddly colored, discard it even before the date.