How long does toner last?

Last Updated on June 4, 2023 by Dave Farquhar

Laser printer toner doesn’t dry out like inkjet ink does. But does toner go bad? Does laser printer toner expire? How long does toner last? In this blog post, I’ll explain why it can last a decade or more.

Laser printer toner doesn’t dry out, so the toner itself doesn’t go bad, and page count matters more than age when it comes to longevity. There are parts inside the toner cartridge that eventually go bad, but that generally takes 15-20 years.

Table of contents

  1. Does laser printer toner dry out?
  2. Does laser printer toner go bad?
  3. Does laser printer toner expire? How long does toner last?
  4. Does the brand make a difference?

Does laser printer toner dry out?

does laser printer toner expire?
There’s a copyright date indicating when this box was printed, but no expiration date on this sealed HP toner cartridge.  The faint printing on the box is probably a lot number. Laser printer toner can last 15 years or more sitting in its box.

Unlike ink, there’s nothing inside a laser printer toner cartridge to dry out. Laser toner isn’t ink; it’s dry plastic particles that the laser printer’s fuser melts onto the paper. So while inkjet cartridges can dry out in a matter of months once you open them, laser printer cartridges have a much longer shelf life. The advertised shelf life is longer, but there’s a longer unadvertised shelf life.

With a laser, the major things that affect lifetime are the number of pages you print and the coverage. A cartridge that lasts 10,000 pages when printing text may only last 1,000 pages printing full-page graphics, and somewhere in between if you print a combination of both. But as long as there is toner in the cartridge and the mechanical parts are in good condition, it will print.

I’ve had cases where the mechanical parts wore out even though the cartridge wasn’t quite empty yet. But even that takes years.

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Does laser printer toner go bad?

The toner itself in laser printer toner cartridges doesn’t go bad, or at least it won’t in your lifetime or mine. It’s plastic dust, after all, and plastic is very stable. There are components in the cartridge that can go bad much sooner than the toner itself does.

Anecdotally, I’ve had people tell me they can get about a year out of a cartridge after they open it.

Also anecdotally, I’ll tell you that I get longer than that out of a toner cartridge. My last three toner cartridges lasted two, four, and four years, respectively. I print less than I used to, so the cartridges last longer.

As long as the toner cartridge spends its life in a box, or in the printer, toner doesn’t generally go bad. If you remove it from the packaging and leave it sitting out in the light, it theoretically will go bad sooner, because some of the parts of a toner cartridge don’t like light exposure. So don’t do that. But I don’t know anyone who does that anyway.

The cartridge itself has some rubber parts in it that degrade over time, including a rubber blade that resembles a windshield wiper. It generally takes 15-20 years for that part to degrade just sitting around. So while it’s a misnomer to say toner cartridges never go bad from just sitting around, it takes a very long time. Longer than we keep the printer, in most cases.

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Does laser printer toner expire? How long does it last?

I’m sure I’ve seen toner cartridges with an expiration date on them. None of the cartridges in my house right now have one, though. When a cartridge does have an expiration date on it, I ignore it and do fine. As I stated above, I’m printing on a 4-year-old toner cartridge right now. If there’s any toner left in the cartridge, I can still print. Quality drops off sometime after I use 90 percent of the toner in the cartridge and I start getting streaks, but that happens to me regardless of the age of the cartridge.

This is only my opinion, but I think either the people who tell me they get a year out of a toner cartridge print more than I do, or they are underestimating the amount of time they get out of a cartridge. I know when I bought the cartridge in the printer now because I have the e-mail from 4inkjets asking me for a review.

I bought the printer in July 2010 and the toner cartridge in it at the time wasn’t new. So I routinely have been getting 3-4 years out of these cartridges. This is why I really like laser printers for home use. I can buy a toner cartridge and just print for years without thinking about it. The toner itself can last decades, if not more. The other parts in the cartridge go bad after a mere two decades. But that’s a life expectancy most of us can live with.

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Does the brand make a difference?

And for the record, that’s been my experience regardless of brand of printer. I’ve owned laser printers made by Panasonic, Lexmark, Samsung, and HP. I keep them until they develop a problem or until supplies get too expensive for them. Then I recycle the printer and get a used one to replace it. I owned a Lexmark 4039 for 13 years. My current printer, an HP Laserjet 4100, is probably 20 years old and I’ve owned it for 13. At one point I printed in high enough volumes that I could empty a cartridge in two years, but my average is closer to 4 years now.

So, while HP, Lexmark, and the like may tell you that laser printer toner expires, I ignore it. And I’ve seen no effect on either print quality or the longevity of my printers.

The only time you’ll have a problem with an old toner cartridge is when it’s closer to 15 or 20 years old. Even then, it won’t hurt the printer.  It just won’t print properly and may make a mess. If you have a cartridge that old, simply recycle it and get a new one.

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7 thoughts on “How long does toner last?

  • August 2, 2018 at 6:30 am
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    I concur 100%. Just this morning installed a replacement black cartridge in my Oki colour laser. The cartridge that ran out had been in there since I purchased the printer in early 2015 and the new toner has been sitting on the shelf for well over two years, with an expiration date of August 2017. It’s absolutely fine and will, I’m sure, remain so until it too runs out, probably some time in 2021 based on my print volume.

  • February 24, 2019 at 3:22 am
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    I agree. Canon is one of the worst offenders: “low toner” warnings pop up almost after printing the first few pages. My LBP7018 has just told me that the black toner cartridge has reached lifetime, yet it’s still printing fine. If this really does damage the printer I’ll get a new one – after all most printers are much cheaper than the cartridges these days!

  • March 15, 2019 at 1:19 pm
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    i am a courier and as well as all the usual anonymous parcels i deliver xerox toners to the many schools in my area, i used to enquire why they didn’t buy in large amounts as one at a time seems ridiculous given the number of times i deliver to them. the answer was always that the cartridges might go out of date, they are told this by xerox????

    • March 15, 2019 at 1:34 pm
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      I’m sure Xerox does tell them that. But I’ve never had a problem with old toner cartridges. I have some 1990s IBM 4029 toner in my basement that I’m sure would work, if I ever find an IBM 4029 printer to put it in.

  • April 29, 2019 at 1:20 pm
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    In February of 2019, I replaced the HP LaserJet toner cartridge with the date “20090522” printed on the box. The cartridge worked fine in my HP LaserJet 4100N until it just ran completely out of toner.

  • August 19, 2019 at 6:12 pm
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    Can I leave a toner cartridge in the printer for a few months without printing?

    • June 19, 2020 at 9:38 am
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      @Pinkypeapod: You ABSOLUTELY CAN feel confident that your laser toner cartridge/printer will still print perfectly after several months of the printer’s non-use.
      My own computer-printing-schedule is about as minimal as anyone’s. I sometimes go without printing anything for up to a year at a time and my “Canon ImageClass MF217W” printer NEVER fails to print perfectly after those many months of non-use (even when using generic-quality, non-OEM compatible toner cartridges).

      REPLACING MY INKJET PRINTER WITH A LASER WAS THE BEST DECISION I EVER MADE….
      NO MORE SURPRISE, DRIED-UP INK CARTRIDGES WHEN YOU NEED YOUR PRINTER TO PERFORM PROPERLY AFTER A YEAR OF ITS IDLE STANDBY!!

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