Carrier decays following pulsed excitation in GaAs‐AlGaAs quantum wells have in the past been attributed to an excitonic recombination path. We show here that such an interpretation is inconsistent with the experimental evidence, and that the decays are controlled by recombination through electronic states at the GaAs‐AlGaAs interfaces. We discuss the expected magnitude of the decay times and the influence of carrier trapping on the decay process.