How to read expiration dates on food

The formats at a glance

Dates with the month spelled out

These are the easiest to read, because the month can't be confused with the day. The order and spacing vary a lot between packers and printers:

When a one- or two-digit number sits before the month and a number sits after it, the first is the day and the last is the year: 04OCT26 is October 4, 2026. When the month comes first, the day follows it. A four-digit year removes all doubt. Imported products may use their own language's abbreviation: OKT and DEZ (German), AVR and JUIN (French), ENE and DIC (Spanish), MRT and MEI (Dutch).

All-number dates: month first or day first?

A date like 04/10/26 has two possible readings. US labels almost always put the month first (April 10). EU law requires best-before and use-by dates to be written day, month, year, in that order, so a product made for the European or UK market means 4 October. If either of the first two numbers is over 12, there's only one reading: 13/10/26 can only be 13 October.

Clues on the package, a plausibility check, and what to do when you still can't tell are in Is 04/10/26 April 10 or October 4?

Year-first dates

A date that starts with a four-digit year, like 2026-10-04 or 2026.10.04, is read year, month, day. This order is used the same way everywhere, so it's unambiguous. The compact version packs the same eight digits together: 20261004. Canada has its own year-first style: best-before dates put the year first (when it's shown) and then a two-letter bilingual month, like 26 OC 04 for October 4, 2026 (see the Canadian month codes).

Month and year only, and “best before end”

Long-life foods like canned goods, pasta, coffee and snacks often print only a month and a year. Read these as the last day of the month. EU and UK rules spell this out: a date that includes the day is introduced with “best before,” and any other date with “best before end,” and for foods that keep between 3 and 18 months, the month and year are enough. A food that keeps longer than 18 months may show only the year.

Two-digit years and missing years

A two-digit year is this century: 26 is 2026. A missing year is common on short-life foods like milk, bread and fresh meat, where the date is only days or weeks away: SELL BY OCT 04 means the next October 4. The EU allows day and month alone for foods that keep up to three months, and Canada makes the year optional unless it's needed for clarity, such as when the date falls in the next year.

One pattern is genuinely ambiguous: SELL BY 10/26. On a carton of milk it almost certainly means October 26. On a can or a box of crackers it more likely means October 2026. Let the product decide: short-life food, month and day; long-life food, month and year.

Date phrases in other languages

Imported and European products use their own phrases. Most split into a quality date (like best by) and a safety date (like use by), and the distinction is stricter in the EU than in the US: an EU “use by” is for highly perishable food that shouldn't be eaten after the date.

Which of several numbers is the date?

Packaging lines often print the date on the same line as production codes. Here's a realistic example, and how to take it apart:

• L2 is a production line. Letters with a number are usually a line, shift or lot marker.
• 26277 is a code: here it could be year 26 and day 277 of the year, the production day. It's for the manufacturer, not you.
• 14:32 is the time it was packed.
• BB 04OCT26 is the date to follow: best before October 4, 2026.

The rules of thumb:

• Follow the phrase. The date after best by, use by, sell by, EXP, or their abbreviations (BB, BBE, UB) is the one that matters. If there are two, like a sell-by and a use-by, see two dates on one label.
• Skip production dates. PACKED ON, PKD, MFG, PROD and DOM tell you when the food was made. More in packed-on dates vs the expiration date.
• Skip lot numbers and plant codes. LOT and BATCH numbers, EST. numbers on meat, and the P- number on egg cartons identify where and when something was produced.
• A real date looks like a date. It has a month name or a plausible month and day, and it falls within the product's normal life: days away for fresh meat, months or years for cans.

Julian codes: when the date is a day number

Some packages carry a Julian date, the day of the year from 001 (January 1) to 365, or 366 in a leap year. On USDA-graded egg cartons, a three-digit Julian number is the required pack date. Cans and other shelf-stable foods often bury a Julian day inside a longer packing code, with one or two digits for the year. These are production dates, so they tell you how old something is, not when to use it.

Convert any of them with the Julian date converter, look them up on the day-of-year calendar, or read the guides for egg carton dates and canned food codes.

What FreshScan does with each format

FreshScan reads the printed date with the iPhone camera and shows a confirmation card before anything is saved. Its reader is built around the formats on this page, and it tells you when it had to fill something in:

Stop squinting at can ends. Point FreshScan at the date, confirm what it read, and it reminds you at 9:00 AM two days before and on the day.

Free on theApp Store

Once you've found the date

Knowing the date is half of it; knowing what kind of date it is is the other half. In the US, food dating isn't required by federal law except on infant formula, and USDA describes best-by, sell-by and use-by dates as quality or inventory dates rather than safety deadlines. The date labels guide covers what each phrase means, and the shelf life chart shows how long foods keep once you've opened them, when the printed date stops applying. If food smells, looks or feels off, don't rely on the date. When in doubt, throw it out.

Questions people ask