Abstract This paper describes one of the first studies of the degradation of retrofit light bulbs based on white GaN light emitting diodes. The results indicate that the lifetime of LED lamps depends mostly on the stability of the driver and optical elements, rather than on the degradation of the LED chips, that have a stable output over stress time. By comparing lamps from four different manufacturers stressed at room and high temperature, we found that (i) long-term stress causes a change of the chromatic properties of the lamps, which is ascribed to the degradation of the phosphors or to the inner LED reflector; (ii) during aging the LED driver may degrade gradually and/or catastrophically, causing a reduction of the output optical power, or a complete failure; (iii) proper thermal management and heat dissipation reduce the degradation rate; (iv) spectral transmissivity measurements and visual inspection reveal the degradation of the diffusive optical elements, which is induced by the short wavelength side of the LED emission spectrum.