Google Analytics Real Time events - How long does an event stay 'current'?

Question

I am using Google analytics events to track what users are searching for within a particular dataset on a single page (the value of an input box when they click search).

I am accessing the real time events using the 'Real Time Reporting API' using the metric rt:totalEvents and the dimension rt:eventLabel. When I query the data I get a response such as:

["Los Angeles, CA",
 "37"
],
[
 "San Francisco, CA",
 "29"
],
[
 "Las Vegas, NV",
 "21"
],

I doubt these figures are be the number of events at the exact time of the query, each event must stay current for a period of time, what is this time frame?

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Answer 1

if memory serves its the last five minutes. However you can easily find out by adding rt:minutesAgo to your request.

Answer 2

OK, I did a little testing and it turns out that the 'real time' events stay current for 30 minutes.

Thanks @DalmTo for recommending the "rt:minutesAgo" dimension as that is very useful!