.NET 8 and .NET 9 End of Support on 10 November 2026: What to Do Now

The short answer

.NET 8 and .NET 9 both reach end of support on 10 November 2026. .NET 8 is a Long Term Support (LTS) release and .NET 9 is a Standard Term Support (STS) release, but Microsoft support policies put them on the same date this time. After it, Microsoft publishes no more patches for either version, not even a security fix.)

The supported destination is .NET 10. It was released on 11 November 2025, it is an LTS release, and Microsoft supports it until 14 November 2028. Anything still on .NET 8 or .NET 9 in production has about six weeks from the time of writing.

How the .NET support lifecycle works

Microsoft publishes a new major .NET release every year in November. Even-numbered releases are LTS releases and get free support and patches for three years. Odd-numbered releases are STS releases. Microsoft publishes the exact end dates on its .NET and .NET Core support policy page, and aligns them with Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of the month.

Each release spends its final six months in maintenance support, when Microsoft ships security fixes only. .NET 8 and .NET 9 are in that phase now.

Why .NET 9 ends on the same day as .NET 8

In September 2025 Microsoft extended STS releases from 18 months of support to 24 months, starting with .NET 9. STS releases now end 12 months after their successor ships. The reason given was that out-of-band packages could quietly move an LTS application onto an STS dependency and shorten its support. The result is that .NET 9 now ends in the same week as .NET 8, so the difference between LTS and STS makes no difference to this deadline.

What end of support means in practice

• Applications keep running. Nothing stops working on 11 November.
• No security updates. Microsoft's own announcement says no new security updates will be issued for either version. The next runtime or ASP.NET Core vulnerability stays open on .NET 8.
• No technical support. Microsoft support cases need a supported version with the latest patch installed.
• Visual Studio tooling. Microsoft says future Visual Studio 2022 servicing updates will mark .NET 8 and 9 components as out of support.
• Audit findings. Vulnerability scanners flag end-of-life .NET runtimes, and that can become a finding in PCI DSS, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 audits.

Windows, Linux and container packaging

On Windows, supported .NET versions are patched through Microsoft Update, but only for framework-dependent apps. Self-contained deployments carry their own runtime and are patched only when you rebuild them. On Linux, Microsoft publishes packages for some distributions, while Ubuntu, RHEL, Fedora and Alpine build their own. Red Hat's .NET policy says Microsoft sets the lifecycle for .NET on RHEL, so the November date applies there too. Do not assume a distribution package extends support.

Upgrading from .NET 8 to .NET 10

For most projects the first step is changing the TargetFramework to net10.0 and updating the SDK in build agents and hosting environments. The work that takes time is elsewhere: breaking changes in ASP.NET Core and Entity Framework Core, third-party NuGet packages that have not shipped a .NET 10 build, and regression testing. The .NET Upgrade Assistant helps with the mechanical part.

Should you wait for .NET 11? No. .NET 11 is an STS release and is at release candidate stage as of September 2026. For a system that has to stay supported without frequent upgrades, .NET 10 LTS is the target.

If you cannot upgrade by 10 November

Some estates will miss the date: vendor applications certified only on .NET 8, large solutions with slow release trains, or regulated systems with long change windows. OSSeva provides .NET 8 extended support with backported security fixes after Microsoft stops, so the upgrade follows your release plan. The .NET 8 end-of-life page tracks the dates, the .NET 6 page covers estates that are further behind, and our .NET support overview lists what is covered.

Frequently asked questions

When does .NET 8 support end?

On 10 November 2026, the Patch Tuesday closest to three years after its November 2023 release.

Is .NET 9 end of life?

Not yet. .NET 9 is in maintenance support and reaches end of support on 10 November 2026, the same day as .NET 8.

Is .NET 10 an LTS release?

Yes. .NET 10 is LTS and is supported until 14 November 2028.

Is the .NET 8 desktop runtime safe after November 2026?

It keeps working, but it receives no more security fixes from Microsoft. Any vulnerability disclosed after that date stays unpatched unless you upgrade or use a third-party support provider.

Does this affect .NET Framework 4.8?

No. .NET Framework has a separate lifecycle policy. This deadline covers .NET 8 and .NET 9 only.