Can you freeze food on its use-by date?

On this page

1. 1Can you freeze food on its use-by date?
2. 2What does a use-by date mean in law?
3. 3What happens to the use-by date once food is frozen?
4. 4How long can you keep food after it has been defrosted?
5. 5Is it riskier to freeze food on the use-by day than the day before?
6. 6How should you defrost food you froze near its use-by date?
7. 7Can you cook food from frozen?
8. 8Can you refreeze food that has been defrosted?
9. 9Which foods need extra care when frozen on the use-by date?
10. 10Can a shop or caterer freeze its own food on its use-by date?
11. 11Who decides the new shelf life when a business freezes food?
12. 12What must a food business label and record when it freezes food?
13. 13Can a shop sell food reduced to clear on its use-by date?
14. 14What are the rules in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
15. 15What do the official sources not say?
16. 16What training helps people who handle and freeze food?
17. 17Frequently asked questions

This guide is for households and for food businesses such as shops and caterers. It is checked against primary sources on 4 November 2026: FSA guidance (now on GOV.UK), FSS guidance, the FSA’s 2021 scientific review, the WRAP, FSA and Defra date-labelling guidance, and the legislation itself. Where they say nothing, we say so. General information, not legal advice.

Can you freeze food on its use-by date?

Yes, if the food is suitable for freezing and has been kept as its label says. The FSA’s consumer guidance says you can eat food after its use-by date if it was cooked or frozen on or before that date (Best before and use-by dates, guide last updated 25 June 2026). Its guide to chilling and freezing says you can freeze food right up until midnight on the use-by date (How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely, published 18 December 2017), and its Christmas guidance says it is safe to freeze food right up to and including the use-by date (Christmas food hygiene, published 2018). Food Standards Scotland gives the same advice: freeze up until the use-by date and follow the freezing and defrosting instructions on the label (FSS, Chilling).

The conditions attached are short:

• The food must be suitable for freezing. Check the pack for freezing and defrosting instructions.
• It must have been stored as the label says up to that point. The FSA’s reasoning, and its 2021 review, assume the food is still safe on the use-by day.
• It must be frozen before the date runs out. The FSA’s deadline is midnight on the use-by date, so earlier in the day is better than the last minute.
• Freeze it properly. The FSA says keep the freezer at around -18°C, cool cooked food first, divide food into smaller portions so it freezes quickly, and label what it is and when it was frozen.

What does a use-by date mean in law?

Under Article 24(1) of assimilated Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, highly perishable foods carry a use-by date instead of a best-before date, and after that date the food is deemed unsafe under Article 14(2) to (5) of assimilated Regulation (EC) No 178/2002. Article 14(1) says unsafe food must not be placed on the market (Article 24, Article 14). “Assimilated” is the current name for retained EU law.

FSS’s shelf-life guidance reads this as meaning a highly perishable food is assumed unsafe after the use-by date expires at midnight that day, and that selling or displaying it for sale after that is an offence (Shelf-life guidance, version 1.2, March 2025). So the use-by day itself is still inside the date; the day after is not. The FSA and Defra’s business guidance says the same more bluntly (Food labelling guidance, last updated 20 September 2022).

The offence sits in secondary legislation: regulation 19 of the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013, read with Schedule 2 (regulation 19), and in Scotland regulation 4 of the General Food Regulations 2004, which FSS cites (regulation 4). Section 8(2) of the Food Safety Act 1990 now just defines food that fails food safety requirements as food unsafe under Article 14 (section 8). Best-before dates are about quality, not safety, so this guide does not cover them; our guide to food labelling requirements answers the use-by versus best-before question in full.

What happens to the use-by date once food is frozen?

The date stops being the limit, because freezing is a pause. The FSA says a freezer at around -18°C puts bacteria on pause, but they are not killed and may revive as the food defrosts (FSA guide). FSS makes the same point: freezing does not kill some harmful bacteria, and growth can restart at higher temperatures. That is why the advice has two halves: freeze in date, then treat the food as freshly defrosted.

Once the food is frozen, the printed use-by date has done its job. What matters afterwards is how long it stays frozen, a quality question, and the defrost clock below, a safety question. On quality, the FSA says meat is usually best eaten within 2 to 3 months, and baked goods, fruit and vegetables within 3 to 4 months; freezer burn affects quality, not safety.

How long can you keep food after it has been defrosted?

It depends who you ask, and the sources do not explain the difference.

At home, follow the rule for where you live, and if you are unsure, the shorter 24 hours is the safer choice (that last point is our suggestion, not an official one). None of the pages we read explains how the 24-hour figure was chosen. The FSA’s own 2021 review noted that telling people to eat defrosted food within 24 hours potentially conflicts with the principle that food should be eaten within its use-by date, if the food was frozen on the use-by date itself. The review then set out to test whether that matters.

Is it riskier to freeze food on the use-by day than the day before?

The FSA’s strategic review asked exactly this (The effects of consumer freezing of food on its use-by date, Cairo, Gherman and Cook, July 2021). Its main findings:

• Little evidence of a significant change in risk for ready-to-eat food frozen on the use-by date compared with the day before.
• The main concern is ready-to-eat food. If food is cooked after defrosting, any small growth is outweighed by the cooking.
• Listeria is the open question. It can grow at fridge temperatures, unlike most pathogens, and the review says it is not clear whether ready-to-eat food frozen on the use-by date poses more risk to vulnerable groups, because the infectious dose is thought to be low and few studies look at thawing.
• Conditions apply. The food was safe on the use-by day, had not spent significant time in the danger zone, was thawed in a fridge, microwave or cold water rather than at room temperature, and was then refrigerated or cooked straight away.

The review is strategic rather than systematic, says risk can only be estimated product by product, and notes there is no legal requirement in the UK to build a safety margin into shelf-life. Our reading, not the review’s: if the food is ready to eat and someone vulnerable will eat it, freezing it earlier than the last evening is a cheap extra precaution.

How should you defrost food you froze near its use-by date?

Plan ahead, because the clock starts when the food is defrosted. The FSA says the safest way is in the fridge, ideally overnight, so the food never enters the danger zone of 8°C to 63°C where bacteria can grow. Keep raw meat and fish covered on the bottom shelf so liquid cannot drip onto other food, and wash hands and surfaces afterwards. If the fridge is not an option, the FSA’s business guidance allows a sealed container under cold running water for raw meat or poultry, or a microwave on the defrost setting. Do not defrost at room temperature, and make sure food is fully defrosted before cooking, because partly defrosted food may cook unevenly. Our guides on food temperature control and the 4 Cs of food hygiene already cover defrosting in detail, so we do not repeat it.

Can you cook food from frozen?

Only if the packaging says you can. The FSA’s business guidance says food must be fully defrosted before cooking unless the manufacturer’s instructions say to cook from frozen (Chilling and freezing, guide last updated 25 June 2026). Food you froze yourself will usually have no cook-from-frozen instructions on its pack, so defrost it fully first. Cook it until steaming hot all the way through; the FSA’s temperature guide is 70°C in the middle for 2 minutes, or an equivalent time and temperature combination (Cooking your food).

The sources do not say how the 24-hour rule applies to food cooked straight from frozen. It is worded as applying once food has been defrosted, so it appears not to arise if there is no defrosted storage period, but that is our inference.

Can you refreeze food that has been defrosted?

Not once it is defrosted, according to the FSA, unless you cook it first. Its Christmas guidance says once food is defrosted, cook and eat it within 24 hours and do not refreeze. You can freeze food again once it has been cooked, but you can only reheat it once after that (FSA, chilling, freezing and defrosting; FSS gives the same advice). WRAP’s suggested pack wording for raw meat is “do not re-freeze raw meat”, and its wording for products that can be refrozen is that they can be refrozen if first cooked.

Under assimilated Regulation (EC) No 853/2004, which covers approved food establishments, minced meat, meat preparations and mechanically separated meat can be frozen but not refrozen after thawing, as the FSA summarises (FSA bulk freezing guidance, last updated 8 July 2026). The sources do not say what to do with food that has only partly thawed and still contains ice crystals.

Which foods need extra care when frozen on the use-by date?

• Ready-to-eat foods. FSS’s list of foods most often linked to Listeria, adapted from UKHSA guidelines, includes sandwiches, soft ripened cheese, pâté, smoked fish, butter and cooked sliced meat (Shelf-life guidance, Annex 4).
• Cooked rice. The FSA says freeze it within an hour of cooking, defrost it in the fridge and reheat it until steaming hot (Home food fact checker).
• Food the pack says not to freeze, or food that was mishandled before freezing. The review’s reassurance does not cover food that spent significant time in the danger zone.

Can a shop or caterer freeze its own food on its use-by date?

Yes, with conditions stricter than for a household. The clearest official statement is an FSS enforcement letter to Scottish Lead Food Officers dated 23 November 2015, which says FSS and the FSA worked to clarify the position (FSS/ENF/15/013). It allows a business preparing food for direct consumption by the final consumer, such as a caterer, to freeze food before the use-by date expires, then defrost and prepare it or use it as an ingredient. It does not cover products the customer prepares. The business needs robust documentation showing when the food was frozen and that this was done safely, and must show that defrosting does not extend the food’s life beyond the original chilled period. The paper’s example is a stock-control time for defrosted food, taking into account the shelf-life left before freezing.

Its worked examples are blunt. Food frozen after the use-by date expired may not be used, and a caterer who cannot prove when food was frozen must dispose of it (examples 6 and 7). Reheating food past its use-by date is no defence (example 5). Food in the freezer marked with the freezing date, with full records, is acceptable: the date mark on the label cannot be extended, but the life of the product can be extended through safe freezing and defrosting (example 9).

Two caveats. The paper dates from 2015 and refers to 2011 guidance that WRAP, the FSA and Defra replaced in November 2017. FSS’s letter of 21 December 2017 summarised the new guidance and repeated that food can be frozen on the day of expiry if freezing starts early enough before midnight and the food is relabelled with a best-before date (FSS/ENF/17/024). Also, cooking changes the position: FSS’s 2025 guidance says a raw ingredient with a use-by date that is cooked need not keep its original use-by date.

A shop that freezes food to sell on as a frozen product is making a different product. FSS says it needs a HACCP-based food safety management system, a new label with the freezing business’s name and address, and defrosting and cooking instructions including shelf-life once defrosted. WRAP says to start freezing early enough that food reaches at least -2°C at midnight on the use-by day, aiming to freeze it through to the core (WRAP labelling guidance). The FSA’s bulk freezing guidance says the latest point is midnight on the date indicated. Our guide to HACCP explains the system all of this must sit inside.

Who decides the new shelf life when a business freezes food?

The business that does the freezing, and it carries the risk. The FSA’s 2021 review says food business operators are responsible for setting shelf-life as part of their HACCP plan. The bulk freezing guidance says a business that changes a durability date must hold evidence that the new date is validated as safe within its food safety management system, and must not change a use-by date in isolation without validation showing that extending it will not increase the risk. If it did not make the food, it should consult the manufacturer. Article 8(4) of assimilated Regulation 1169/2011 makes a business responsible for any changes it makes to food information and forbids changes that would mislead the consumer (Article 8). The FSA adds that it cannot give definitive advice on every scenario: businesses with a Primary Authority partnership should ask that authority, and others their local food authority.

What must a food business label and record when it freezes food?

The FSA says relabelled food must still comply fully with labelling and traceability law, and allergen information is part of that, so check our guide to the 14 allergens before you repack anything. If you sell frozen food online, the durability and freezing dates are the two pieces of information that need not be given before purchase, though everything must be supplied on delivery (see selling food online). If you ever find that food you have supplied was unsafe, the recall and withdrawal duties in Article 19 of Regulation 178/2002 can apply (see food recalls and withdrawals).

Can a shop sell food reduced to clear on its use-by date?

It can sell it until the date expires, but the official sources we read do not address price reductions, so this is the legal frame rather than a ruling on discounting. Food is deemed unsafe only after the date, which FSS reads as midnight that day. A lower price changes nothing: after midnight the food cannot be sold or displayed for sale, an officer does not have to prove it is unsafe, and a laboratory test cannot rescue it (FSS/ENF/15/013, example 1).

Four consequences follow. The label’s storage conditions apply until the moment of sale, so the chill must hold all day. A customer who buys late may freeze the food that night, since the FSA’s advice is to freeze up to midnight, so in our view your label and staff advice should not contradict that. If the business wants to freeze its own end-of-day stock, it needs the documentation above, not a freezer and a marker pen. And donating surplus is not a loophole: WRAP’s guidance says food past its use-by date should never be presented for redistribution, and food frozen for redistribution must be relabelled with its freezing date recorded. Community groups receiving it should read our guide to food hygiene rules for charities and community groups.

What are the rules in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

The FSA guidance publications on GOV.UK state that they apply to England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Scotland has its own regulator, FSS, and the most visible difference is the defrosting time.

We found no Northern Ireland-specific difference in the sources used. See our temperature control guide for the chilled-food limits.

What do the official sources not say?

• Why the FSA says 24 hours and FSS says 1 to 2 days.
• Whether the defrost clock starts when thawing begins or finishes. The FSA’s 2017 guide says “fully defrosted”; its other pages say “defrosted”.
• How the clock applies to food cooked from frozen, or to food only partly thawed.
• Anything about price reductions on the use-by day.
• Exactly how frozen food must be at midnight. WRAP says ideally at least -2°C, while the FSA’s bulk freezing guidance says only that the latest point is midnight on the date indicated.
• Whether FSS has replaced its 2015 caterer position with anything newer. We found its 2017 letter and 2025 guidance, but no newer paper.

What training helps people who handle and freeze food?

Three Nexis CPD courses cover the knowledge behind this guide:

Together they cost £18 rather than £27 under the pay-for-2-get-3 offer, and employers training 5 or more staff pay £6 a course place on the team plan. These are awareness-level CPD courses, not Ofqual-regulated qualifications, and we do not offer a Level 3 food safety course. They do not replace your food safety procedures or your council’s advice. Start with Food Safety and Hygiene (Retail) Level 2: 20 questions, 80% to pass, and an instant certificate.

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Frequently asked questions

Can I freeze food on its use-by date?

Yes. The FSA says you can freeze food right up until midnight on the use-by date, if it is suitable for freezing and has been stored as its label says. Label it with the date, defrost it in the fridge and use it within 24 hours (1 to 2 days in Scotland, per FSS).

How long can I keep food after defrosting it?

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the FSA says within 24 hours of defrosting. Food Standards Scotland says within 1 to 2 days. Once food has been frozen in date, the printed use-by date no longer sets the limit; the defrost clock does.

Can I refreeze food that I have defrosted?

The FSA says do not refreeze defrosted food. You can freeze it again once it has been cooked, but you can then reheat it only once. WRAP’s suggested pack wording for raw meat is do not re-freeze raw meat.

Can a restaurant or shop freeze food on its use-by date?

Yes, with conditions. FSS’s 2015 enforcement paper accepts caterers freezing food before the use-by date expires, with robust documentation of when and how it was frozen. The label’s date cannot be extended, but safe freezing and defrosting can extend the food’s life. A shop selling it on as frozen needs a new label, validation evidence and traceability records.

Can a shop sell food on its use-by date?

Yes, until the date expires at midnight that day. After that the food is deemed unsafe, and it is an offence to sell it or display it for sale. The official sources we read do not deal with price reductions specifically.

Does a Nexis CPD course qualify me to freeze or relabel food in a business?

No. The courses are CPD-accredited awareness training, not Ofqual-regulated qualifications, and we have no Level 3 food safety course. They do not replace your food safety management system, your HACCP-based procedures or your council’s advice.

General information, not legal advice. This guide reflects the legislation and the FSA, Food Standards Scotland and WRAP guidance named above, as checked on 4 November 2026. The FSS enforcement paper on use-by dates dates from November 2015 and the FSA’s chilling and freezing guide from December 2017, so check current guidance with your local authority. Rules differ in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Nexis CPD courses are CPD-accredited awareness training, not Ofqual-regulated qualifications, and they do not replace your food safety procedures or your council’s advice.