How long to keep temperature logs
By Vimal Bhaya, Founder and Lead Systems Architect · Last reviewed 21 October 2026
This is a continuation of Temperature log basics, a 4-part tutorial. You are on part 4 of 4.
It depends on the rule you fall under, from 90 days to 3 years. FDA-regulated food plants keep records for 2 years. USDA meat and poultry plants keep them 1 to 2 years. CDC asks for vaccine fridge logs to be kept 3 years. For a restaurant's own fridge logs, the FDA Food Code sets no period, so your state or local health department or your company does.
If nobody has told you a number, ask your inspector. Until then, two years covers most of the federal food rules. And a long record earns its shelf space: it shows a box slowly getting worse.
Retention periods run from 90 days to 3 years
| Who | Keep for | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| A restaurant or store, routine fridge and freezer logs | No period set by the Food Code. Your state or local health department, or your company, sets it | FDA Food Code |
| A restaurant or store, reduced oxygen packaging, cook-chill or sous vide | At least 6 months | Food Code 3-502.12 |
| A restaurant or store, shellstock tags for oysters, clams and mussels | 90 calendar days | Food Code 3-203.12 |
| A food plant under FDA preventive controls | At least 2 years after the record was made | 21 CFR 117.315 |
| A meat or poultry plant under USDA | 1 year for slaughter and refrigerated product. 2 years for frozen, preserved or shelf-stable | 9 CFR 417.5 |
| A seafood plant | 1 year for refrigerated product. 2 years for frozen, preserved or shelf-stable | 21 CFR 123.9 |
| A juice plant | 1 year for refrigerated juice. 2 years, or the shelf life if longer, for frozen, preserved or shelf-stable | 21 CFR 120.12 |
| A school meal program, Idaho's as an example | The current year plus the three before it | Idaho's child nutrition programs |
| A vaccine fridge or freezer | 3 years, unless your state asks for longer | CDC |
Local rules vary. One county's sample procedure, from Northern Nevada Public Health, asks for logs to be kept at least 6 months. Check yours, and write it on the front of the binder.
In Canada, records under a preventive control plan are kept for 2 years, or 3 years for shelf-stable low-acid foods, under the CFIA's record-keeping rules.
The clock starts on the day each record was made
The federal rules count from the date each record was prepared, not from the end of the month or the year. Under a 2-year rule, a sheet from 1 March 2026 is kept until at least 1 March 2028.
Filing by month keeps this simple. Each month's sheets go in one folder, and the folder goes when its newest sheet has passed the period.
Keep logs where you can hand them over quickly
- On site at first. USDA meat and poultry plants keep records on site for 6 months. After that they can be stored off site, if they can be brought back within 24 hours (9 CFR 417.5).
- Ready for the inspector. Under the Food Code, the person in charge gives the inspector the records the Code requires (8-402.11).
- Electronic is allowed. USDA accepts computer records for meat and poultry plants, with controls that keep the data intact. CDC's vaccine programs are built around digital data loggers.
- Readable for the whole period. Wet paper smudges and thermal paper fades. Scan paper logs that you have to keep for years.
An old log is worth more than the rule asks
A log kept for years is not only for the inspector. Immunize.org, answering how long to keep vaccine fridge logs, points out that the logs help show whether a unit is starting to malfunction.
Slow faults only show over weeks. In one walk-in freezer we monitor, the coldest reading of each day crept up from about -3°F (-19°C) to about 12°F (-11°C) over ten days, as a defrost timer failed. In another, a day in early June averaged 5°F (-15°C), and a day in early July averaged 17°F (-8°C), as the system lost capacity. Both are on the shapes failures leave in temperature data.
Neither shows up in one day's log. Both show up when you look back.
TemperatureWise keeps every reading indefinitely
TemperatureWise records each box at least every 15 minutes and keeps the record indefinitely, as an audit trail for HACCP, BRC and SQF. The retention period is never the limit.
The paper logs you keep by hand still need keeping for your rule's period. So do the records of what staff did when a box went out of range.