Expiration dates

Overview

The core feature of Product Expiration Dates for WooCommerce is tracking expiration dates on your products. In the free version, each product (or variation) has a single expiration date. This works well for products with a uniform shelf life or a single production batch.

Setting expiration dates

Simple products

1. Go to Products → Edit Product and open the product you want to edit.
2. In the Product data panel, click the Expiration tab.
3. Use the date picker to select the expiration date.
4. Save the product.

Variable products

Each variation can have its own expiration date:

1. Open the variable product and navigate to the Variations tab.
2. Expand the variation you want to edit.
3. Set the expiration date in the Expiration Date field.
4. Save changes and update the product.

Parent date inheritance: You can also set an expiration date on the parent variable product (in the Expiration tab). Variations without their own date will inherit the parent’s date. Variations with their own date use that instead. This is useful when most variations share the same expiration but one or two differ.

When a customer selects a variation on the frontend, the expiration date displayed will update to match that specific variation (or the parent date if the variation has none).

Display settings

Control how expiration dates appear to your customers under Products → Expirations → Settings → General:

Frontend display

When enabled, a label showing the expiration date appears on the product page. You can configure:

• Label text — Customize the label shown before the date (e.g., “Best Before”, “Use By”, “Expires”).
• Display threshold — Set a number of days so the date only appears when the product expires within that window. Set to 0 to always show the expiration date.

Dates are entered using your browser’s native date picker. The display format follows your WordPress date format setting (Settings → General).

Expiring soon threshold

The expiring soon threshold defines how many days before expiration a product is flagged as “expiring soon.” This threshold is used throughout the plugin:

• The dashboard widget highlights products that are expiring soon.
• Reports filter products into “expiring soon” and “expired” categories.
• The frontend badge can display differently for products nearing expiration.

Set this value under Products → Expirations → Settings → General. For example, setting it to 30 means any product expiring within the next 30 days is considered “expiring soon.”