Yes, eye prescriptions do expire. Eyeglass prescriptions usually expire one or two years after your exam, depending on your state. Contact lens prescriptions must be valid for at least one year under federal law, and about ten states extend that to two years. Your eye doctor can also set a shorter expiration if there’s a documented medical reason tied to your eye health.
How Long an Eyeglass Prescription Lasts
No federal law sets a minimum or maximum expiration for eyeglass prescriptions. The FTC’s Eyeglass Rule requires that your prescription carry an expiration date as specified by your state’s law, but the rule itself doesn’t dictate what that date should be.1Federal Trade Commission. Complying with the Eyeglass Rule In practice, most states land on one or two years from the exam date.
The expiration should be printed on the prescription itself. If it isn’t, call your eye doctor’s office. Whatever period your state assigns still applies whether the date appears on paper or not.
Your doctor can also shorten the expiration based on your individual eye health, for instance if you have a condition that’s likely to change your vision faster than usual.
How Long a Contact Lens Prescription Lasts
Contact lenses follow stricter federal rules. Under the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act, your contact lens prescription must be valid for at least one year from the date it was issued.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 7604 – Expiration of Contact Lens Prescriptions If your state sets a longer period, the state law controls. About ten states, including California, Florida, and New Jersey, require two years.
The federal regulation lays out three possible expiration scenarios. Your prescription expires on the date your state law specifies if that period is one year or more. It expires after one year if your state has no rule or sets a shorter period. Or it expires on an earlier date your doctor chooses for a documented medical reason.3eCFR. 16 CFR 315.6 – Expiration of Contact Lens Prescriptions
When a Doctor Can Shorten the Contact Lens Expiration
A prescriber can cut the expiration below one year, but only when there’s a genuine medical reason tied to your eye health. The doctor must document the specific justification in your medical record in enough detail that another qualified professional could review it, and the record must be kept for at least three years.3eCFR. 16 CFR 315.6 – Expiration of Contact Lens Prescriptions The shortened expiration also can’t be earlier than the interval the doctor recommends for your next medically necessary exam. A doctor can’t set a six-month expiration while telling you to come back in a year.
Why Prescriptions Expire
Two reasons overlap here: prescription accuracy and eye health. Vision changes gradually, and you often don’t notice your lenses are slightly off until the difference becomes significant. Wearing an outdated prescription long enough can cause persistent headaches, eye strain, and fatigue that people blame on something else.
The bigger reason is that a routine eye exam does far more than update your lens power. Your eye doctor screens for glaucoma, macular degeneration, and cataracts, all of which can develop without obvious symptoms in their early stages. Eye exams also catch signs of systemic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure, which can show up in the blood vessels of the retina. Expiration dates are the mechanism that brings people back for those checks. Without them, many would just reorder the same lenses year after year.
Contact lenses carry additional risk because they sit directly on the cornea. An ill-fitting lens can restrict oxygen flow, cause corneal abrasions, or create conditions that lead to serious infection. That’s the reason federal law imposes a floor on contact lens expiration that doesn’t exist for glasses.4Federal Trade Commission. The Contact Lens Rule – A Guide for Prescribers and Sellers
What Happens Once Your Prescription Expires
Once your contact lens prescription expires, you won’t be able to order new lenses through any legitimate seller. When you order from a third-party retailer, that seller has to verify the prescription with your prescriber before shipping, and the verification process catches expired prescriptions either at the prescriber’s end or in the seller’s own records.5eCFR. 16 CFR 315.5 – Prescriber Verification For glasses, most reputable retailers also decline to fill an expired prescription, though this is enforced through state law rather than a single federal rule.
The larger cost of an expired prescription isn’t the ordering hassle. It’s the missed health screening. A condition like glaucoma is far more treatable when caught early, and most people only discover it through the routine exam they scheduled because their prescription was running out.
Getting a New Prescription
A new prescription means scheduling a comprehensive eye exam with an optometrist or ophthalmologist. The doctor tests your visual acuity, checks for refractive errors that set your lens power, and evaluates the health of the internal and external structures of your eyes. Contact lens wearers usually get a separate fitting evaluation as well, to check how the lenses sit on the cornea and whether the eyes are getting enough oxygen.
Without vision insurance, a comprehensive eye exam generally runs between $100 and $250, with contact lens fittings sometimes billed separately. Vision insurance and discount programs through large optical chains can bring the out-of-pocket cost down. Community health centers and some nonprofits offer reduced-fee exams if cost is a barrier.
If your prescription just expired and you need lenses quickly, the fastest path is a new exam. Some offices can fit you in same-day or next-day, and many large optical retailers keep in-house exam rooms with short wait times. After the exam, your doctor is required to hand you a copy of the new prescription at no extra charge.6eCFR. 16 CFR 456.2 – Eyeglass Rule From there, you can fill it at the doctor’s office, a retail optical shop, or an online seller.
Online Vision Tests as a Renewal Option
A growing number of companies offer online vision tests or telehealth eye exams that promise a new prescription without an office visit. These can work for a straightforward renewal, but they have real limits. Online tests primarily measure visual acuity and can update lens power. They can’t check eye pressure, examine your retina, or detect conditions like glaucoma or macular degeneration that require specialized imaging.
The legal status of prescriptions from online tests also varies by state. Some states allow licensed optometrists to prescribe through telehealth platforms; others require an in-person exam. If you haven’t had a comprehensive in-person exam in more than two years, an online refraction alone isn’t a substitute for the full health screening.