How Old Is My Refrigerator?
Your refrigerator's manufacture date is encoded in its serial number, and the sticker carrying it is almost always inside the fresh-food compartment rather than on the back. Enter the serial below and we'll decode the year, then tell you where it sits against a typical lifespan.
How Old Is Your Refrigerator — and What to Do About It
Every other page answering this question stops at the number. Finding the age is the easy half: the serial number is on a sticker inside the fresh-food compartment, usually on the side wall near the crisper drawers, and the decoder below will read the manufacture year from it in a second. The half that actually matters is what that number means for the decision in front of you.
A refrigerator lasts 10 to 18 years, averaging about 13. Where yours sits in that range changes the answer completely. Under 10 years, the things that fail — ice makers, door gaskets, defrost heaters, control boards — are cheap relative to replacement, and repairing is almost always right. Past 12, compressor and sealed-system failures start appearing, and those are the repairs that approach half the price of a new unit.
Where is the serial number on a refrigerator?
- 1Inside the fresh-food compartment, on the side wall near the crisper drawers — this is the most common spot by far.
- 2On the ceiling of the fresh-food compartment, toward the front.
- 3Behind or underneath the crisper drawers (you may need to pull a drawer out).
- 4On the back of the unit, near the compressor — usually only on older or commercial models.
Not the number you want: the model number, which usually sits on the same sticker and is often shorter. Model numbers describe the product line; only the serial carries the date.
Brand exceptions worth knowing
GE encodes month and year as the first two letters of the serial, using only 12 letters — the year letter repeats every 12 years, so confirm the result against roughly when you bought it.
Samsung reads its year from a letter partway into the serial, not the leading digits — a common source of wrong answers from other decoders.
Bosch does not date the serial at all. The date lives in the separate FD number.
Decode your serial number
Pick the manufacturer, then type the serial exactly as it appears. We'll read the manufacture date out of it.
Pick your manufacturer above and we'll show the exact serial format to look for.
Pick your manufacturer and we'll show you exactly what its serial number looks like and where to find it.
Reading the date code by brand
The decoder above handles all of these automatically. This is the reference if you want to read the serial yourself, or check its work. Where the sticker is on a refrigerator is covered in step 1 — below is how each brand encodes the date once you’ve found it.
How old is my Whirlpool, Maytag or KitchenAid refrigerator?
- Covers:
- Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Amana, Jenn-Air, Kenmore (Whirlpool-built) — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- A letter, then a year code (letter or digit), then digits — e.g. C21234567. The 3rd-4th digits are the week (01-53).
- Reading the year:
- Whirlpool reuses letter year codes about every 30 years (e.g. A = 2021 or 1991) — the week digits and your purchase era settle it.
- Don’t use:
- Not the model number (starts with letters like WRF, MVW, KDT). The serial is the second code on the same tag.
- Worked example:
C21234567 → March 2012
How old is my GE refrigerator?
- Covers:
- GE, GE Profile, Café, Monogram, Hotpoint (US only) — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- Two letters + 6 digits, sometimes a letter at the end (e.g. TL123456B)
- Reading the year:
- GE reuses year letters every 12 years, so one serial can match two or three plausible years — pick the one that matches when you bought or moved in.
- Don’t use:
- Not the model number (the longer code with digits and letters mixed throughout, e.g. GTS18GTHWW).
- Worked example:
TL123456 → October 2018
How old is my Samsung refrigerator?
- What the serial looks like:
- 15 characters — the 8th is the year letter, the 9th the month (on short 11-character serials it's the 4th and 5th)
- Reading the year:
- Samsung reuses year letters every 20 years, so the letters that have come round again (L, R, T, W, X, Y) match two plausible years — your purchase era settles it.
- Don’t use:
- Not the model number (starts with RF, WF, DW etc.). The serial is on the same sticker, usually below a barcode.
- Worked example:
0AB74AEKA00123Z → October 2018
How old is my LG refrigerator?
- Covers:
- LG, Kenmore (LG-built) — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- Starts with 3 digits: first = year, next two = month 01-12 (e.g. 810KW... = Oct 2018)
- Reading the year:
- The year is a single digit, so it repeats every 10 years (8 = 2018 or 2008) — your purchase era settles it.
- Don’t use:
- Not the model number (starts with letters, e.g. LFXS26973S).
- Worked example:
810KWXX12345 → October 2018
How old is my Bosch refrigerator?
- Covers:
- Bosch, Thermador, Gaggenau, Siemens, Neff — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- The FD number: "FD" + 4 digits (FD 0301 = Jan 2023), often with extra digits after it (FD030100233 works too)
- Don’t use:
- NOT the E-Nr — that's the model number, and it's the first thing you'll see on the tag. The date lives only in the FD number next to it.
- Worked example:
FD030100233 → January 2023
How old is my Frigidaire or Electrolux refrigerator?
- Covers:
- Frigidaire, Electrolux, Kenmore (Electrolux-built), Gibson, Kelvinator, Tappan, White-Westinghouse — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- Two letters + 8-10 digits (e.g. NF81064326): 3rd character = last digit of the year, 4th-5th = week 01-53
- Reading the year:
- Only the last digit of the year is encoded, so it repeats every decade (8 = 2018, 2008 or 1998) — go by when you bought the home or unit.
- Don’t use:
- Not the model number (mixes letters throughout, e.g. FFTR1814TW).
- Worked example:
NF81064326 → March 2018
How old is my Kenmore refrigerator?
- Covers:
- Kenmore, Kenmore Elite, Kenmore Pro — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- Whatever the actual builder uses — Sears sold other makers' machines under the Kenmore name. Enter the serial and, if you have it, the model number.
- Reading the year:
- Kenmore units were built by Whirlpool, LG, Frigidaire and others, each with its own dating scheme. Where a serial reads plausibly on more than one of them, the model number settles it.
- Don’t use:
- The MODEL number is genuinely useful here (it starts with three digits and a dot, e.g. 110.45862400) — it tells us who built the unit. Enter it in the model box if the serial alone is ambiguous.
- Worked example:
810KWXX12345 → October 2018
Is your refrigerator broken, or are you just checking?
The age means different things depending on the answer. Pick one and we'll show you only what applies.
What tends to fail, and when
| Age | What typically goes |
|---|---|
| Years 1-5 | Ice maker faults and door-seal gasket wear. Both are cheap fixes and not a reason to replace. |
| Years 6-10 | Defrost heaters, thermostats and control boards. Repairs typically run well under the cost of replacement. |
| Years 11-15 | Compressor and sealed-system failures start appearing. A compressor repair often approaches half the price of a new unit. |
| Years 16+ | Efficiency losses compound — a fridge from the mid-2000s can use roughly twice the electricity of a current model. |
*Actual lifespan depends on usage, maintenance and quality. Well-maintained appliances often exceed these averages.
What the age actually means for a refrigerator
Signs it's time to replace rather than repair
Any one of these usually settles it on its own, whatever a repair quote says — each is the enclosure or the core going, not a part.
And the money: Any single repair quote that exceeds half the cost of a comparable new refrigerator is usually not worth paying — the decision tool above works this out from real numbers.
How long a refrigerator lasts
13
years average
10
typical minimum
18
well maintained
*Actual lifespan depends on usage, maintenance, and quality. Well-maintained appliances often exceed these averages.
That gives you a usable rule: if a single repair quote comes to more than 50% of a comparable new refrigerator, replace it rather than repair it. Age tightens the rule rather than replacing it — a 50% quote on a 6-year-old fridge is still usually worth paying, while the same quote at 14 years rarely is, because you are buying a short extension on a unit already at the end of its expected life.
Age carries a running cost too, which is specific to this appliance: a refrigerator is the one machine in the house that never switches off. A unit from the mid-2000s can draw roughly twice the electricity of a current model, so an old fridge that still works is quietly on every electricity bill you pay. That is the calculation that makes a working 18-year-old garage fridge a worse deal than it looks.
Enter the serial below and the decoder will identify the manufacturer, read the date, and place your refrigerator against all of the above. If it cannot date the serial with confidence it will say so rather than guess — and it will still show you the lifespan, failure timeline and repair-or-replace position for your appliance type.
Things worth knowing about your refrigerator
The only appliance that never switches off
Your refrigerator is the one machine in the house running every hour of every day for its entire life. That is why age matters more here than anywhere else — an older unit quietly adds to every single electricity bill, not just the ones where you used it.
Efficiency moved a long way
Refrigerator energy use fell dramatically through the 1990s and 2000s under successive efficiency standards. A fridge built in the early 1990s can draw on the order of twice what a comparable new one does, which is why a working-but-ancient garage fridge is rarely the bargain it feels like.
Why the sticker is inside, not behind
Manufacturers moved the rating plate into the fresh-food compartment precisely because nobody wants to pull a loaded fridge away from the wall. If you are reaching behind the unit, you are almost certainly looking in the wrong place.
Common questions
How can I tell how old my refrigerator is?
Find the serial number on the sticker inside the fresh-food compartment — usually on the side wall near the crisper drawers — and enter it into the decoder above. Most manufacturers encode the manufacture month and year directly into the serial.
Where is the serial number on a refrigerator?
Open the fresh-food door and look along the side wall near the crisper drawers, then check the ceiling of the compartment toward the front. On older units it may instead be on the back near the compressor.
How long does a refrigerator last?
A typical refrigerator lasts 10 to 18 years, averaging about 13. Side-by-side and built-in models with more electronics tend toward the shorter end of that range.
Is it worth repairing a 15-year-old refrigerator?
Usually not, if the repair involves the sealed system or compressor. At 15 years the unit is at the end of its expected life and a major repair often costs half of a replacement — while a new model will use noticeably less electricity.
Protect your home appliances before they break
A home warranty covers breakdowns on your working home appliances — the kitchen and laundry machines you use every day, plus the systems that run the house.
- Not the same as home insurance
- Insurance covers disasters and theft. A home warranty covers breakdowns from normal wear and tear — the washer that simply stops working.
- One plan, the whole house
- Coverage spans the appliances and the systems together rather than a single machine, so it is bought per home, not per unit.
- Arranged before a breakdown
- Plans cover appliances that are working when you sign up, and an inspection usually is not needed. That is simply how the product works — it is bought ahead of a failure, not after one.
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