How Long to Keep Temperature Logs, and Why There Is No Single Answer
How long to keep temperature logs. There is no federal rule, so here is what does have a set period, how to find your local rule and what most operators keep.
Key takeaways
- There is no federal retention period for routine cooler, freezer and hot holding logs. Your state, county, insurer and contracts set the number.
- Shellstock tags have a real rule, 90 days in date order, and FSMA 204 traceability records must be kept for 2 years.
- Congress directed the FDA not to enforce the food traceability rule before 20 July 2028, which is not the same as the FDA extending it.
- One year is the common practice for daily and cooling logs, and records tied to an illness complaint or injury should be kept far longer.
On this page
Search for how long to keep temperature logs and you will find confident answers. One year. Three years. Six months. They cannot all be right, and most of them cite nothing.
The honest answer is that there is no universal federal retention period for routine temperature logs. There are specific retention periods for specific records, and none of them covers the cooler log on your clipboard. What decides your answer is your state, your county, your insurer and your own risk tolerance, in roughly that order.
- Federal rule
- None for routine cooler, freezer and hot holding logs
- Shellstock tags
- 90 days, kept in date order
- FSMA 204 records
- 2 years, not enforced before 20 July 2028
- Common practice
- 1 year for daily and cooling logs
- Who sets your number
- Your state, county, insurer and contracts
This article covers the narrow question of temperature logs. For the wider picture across every record type a restaurant keeps, see our retention table by record type.
This is not legal advice. Before you set a retention policy, call your local health department and ask them directly. They are the people who will inspect you, and the call costs nothing.
Why there is no single number
Three things would have to be true for a single retention period to exist, and for routine temperature logs none of them are.
No federal rule sets one. The FDA Food Code is the model most states build from, and it specifies retention periods for a small number of particular records. Routine cooler, freezer and hot holding logs are not among them. The Code requires temperatures to be maintained and in some cases measured. It does not say how long you keep the paper.
The Food Code is a model, not a law. Even where the Code does specify something, it binds nobody until a state adopts it. States adopt different editions on different timetables, and a jurisdiction may modify what it adopts. Two restaurants in neighbouring states can be under genuinely different rules.
Local health departments add their own requirements. A county can and often does impose record expectations beyond whatever the state code says. These rarely appear in search results because they sit in local ordinances rather than national guidance.
So the question “how long do I keep temperature logs” has no national answer, in the same way “what is the speed limit” has no national answer.
What actually does have a retention period
Some food records carry specific, citable retention periods. These are the ones worth knowing, because they are the ones an inspector can point to.
Shellstock tags, 90 days. Virginia’s food regulation at 12VAC5-421-410 is a good example of how this appears in a state code. The required tag language says the tag stays attached until the container is empty or is retagged, “and thereafter kept on file, in chronological order, for 90 days.” Most states have an equivalent provision because most states adopt it from the Food Code. Note the detail: the 90 days run from when the last shellfish from that container is sold or served, kept in date order, not from delivery.
Traceability records under FSMA 204, two years. 21 CFR 1.1455(d), in the FSMA food traceability rule, says that unless the subpart specifies otherwise, you must maintain records containing the information it requires for two years from the date you created or obtained them.
The compliance date for that rule is worth getting right, because a lot of published content has it wrong.
- Final ruleSets 20 January 2026 as the original compliance date
- 7 August 2025The FDA proposes moving it 30 months, to 20 July 2028
- Act of 2026Congress directs the FDA not to enforce the rule before 20 July 2028
- 20 July 2028The earliest date the rule can be enforced
The FDA proposed the extension in a Federal Register notice dated 7 August 2025. Congress then directed the FDA not to enforce the rule before 20 July 2028, in the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act of 2026.
That sequence matters. Most articles say the FDA extended the date. The FDA proposed an extension; Congress directed the non-enforcement. If you are explaining this to anyone who will act on it, the difference between a proposed rule and a statutory directive is not academic.
Note also that the FDA’s own food traceability rule page still shows the old January 2026 date in its getting started section, while stating the 2028 position in its compliance date section (as of November 2026). If you are checking this yourself, read the whole page rather than the first date you find.
How to find the rule that applies to you
Six steps, in order. This takes about half a day and you only do it once.
- Find out which Food Code edition your state enforces. Ask your health department. Do not assume it is the newest one. Plenty of jurisdictions are years behind, and the FDA published a 2026 edition of the Food Code in September 2026 that will take years to spread.
- Ask your health department directly about temperature log retention. The exact question to ask: “If you inspected us tomorrow, how far back would you expect our temperature records to go?” That phrasing gets you a practical answer rather than a reference to a section number.
- Check your county or city separately. The state answer and the local answer are not always the same, and the local one is the one that walks through your door.
- Ask your insurer. General liability carriers often have record expectations written into the policy, and they are frequently longer than anything a health department asks for. This is the step almost nobody takes, and it is usually the one that sets the real number.
- Check your own contracts. Franchise agreements, management agreements and large customer contracts sometimes specify record retention. If you supply a school district, a hospital or a corporate campus, look at what you signed.
- Write down the answer and the date you got it. Include who you spoke to. In two years, when somebody asks why the policy says what it says, that note is the whole answer.
What most operators actually do
With no rule forcing a number, practice among restaurant operators has settled on a few common periods. These are conventions, not requirements, and we are presenting them as what operators do rather than as what anyone must do.
| Record | Common practice | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Daily temperature logs | 1 year | Convention, and it covers a full inspection cycle |
| Cooling logs | 1 year | Same |
| Shellstock tags | 90 days | A specific legal requirement in most states |
| Traceability records once FSMA 204 is enforced | 2 years | 21 CFR 1.1455(d) |
| Incident and complaint records | Kept indefinitely | Legal exposure outlasts any retention rule |
| Equipment service records | Life of the equipment | Warranty and resale value |
The one year convention for routine logs exists for a sensible reason. It covers a full year of inspections, so you can always show the period since the last visit, and it matches most insurer expectations without becoming a storage problem on paper. If you are setting up paper logs from scratch, a food temperature and cooling log puts receiving, holding, cooling and calibration on one set of sheets.
The incident line is the one to take seriously. A retention period tells you the minimum. It never tells you to throw something away. If an illness complaint or an injury is attached to a date, the records around that date should outlive any policy you write.
The question behind the question
Most people asking how long to keep temperature logs are really asking something else: how do we stop this being a burden.
A year of paper logs for one restaurant is a box. For twelve restaurants it is twelve boxes in twelve different back offices, filed by twelve different people to twelve different standards, and the one you need is always at the site you are not at.
That is the actual cost, and it is not the storage. It is that the records exist in a form where answering a question about them means driving somewhere.
There is also a quieter problem with paper that retention policy does not touch. A log sheet signed at the end of the shift, from memory, for readings that were not taken at the time, is a record that satisfies a retention policy and proves nothing. The retention question is easy. The question of whether the record means anything is the hard one.
MaintainIQ, a checklist and temperature log app for restaurants and multi-location operators, addresses the second question, and the first one stops mattering as a result. Digital temperature checks have due times, hourly if you need them, and each one records who submitted it, with supported Bluetooth probes so the number comes off the probe rather than out of somebody’s head. A manager can pull up or export past records for any date range to show an inspector, without a box, and the multi-location reports answer a question about any site from where you are sitting. A failed check can create a follow-up task that someone has to close, and the document library holds your written retention policy next to the records it governs. It works the same for one location or fifty.
Frequently asked questions
How long do restaurants have to keep temperature logs?
There is no universal federal retention period for routine temperature logs. The requirement, if there is one, comes from your state food code and your local health department. One year is common practice rather than a legal rule.
Does the FDA Food Code say how long to keep temperature logs?
The Food Code specifies retention periods for a small number of particular records. Routine cooler, freezer and hot holding logs are not among them.
How long do I keep shellstock tags?
90 days, kept in chronological order, after the container is emptied or retagged. Virginia's version of this requirement is at 12VAC5-421-410, and most states have an equivalent because it comes from the Food Code.
When does FSMA 204 take effect?
Not before 20 July 2028. The original date was 20 January 2026, the FDA proposed a 30 month extension in a Federal Register notice dated 7 August 2025, and Congress then directed the FDA not to enforce the rule before 20 July 2028.
How long do FSMA 204 records have to be kept?
Two years from the date you created or obtained them, under 21 CFR 1.1455(d), unless the subpart specifies otherwise for a particular record.
Can I keep temperature logs digitally instead of on paper?
Generally yes, and most jurisdictions accept electronic records, but confirm with your health department before you throw out the paper. Some inspectors still expect to see records on site in a form they can look at during the visit.
Should I ever keep records longer than the policy says?
Yes. Anything connected to an illness complaint, an injury or a dispute should be kept well beyond any routine period. A retention policy sets a minimum, not a deadline to destroy.