Short answer: Drupal 10 reaches end of life on 9 December 2026, and drupal.org will make no new Drupal 10 releases after that date. A Drupal 10 site should be on Drupal 11 before then, and on 11.4 or later, because 11.3 loses security support the same week. Waiting for Drupal 12 does not help: it refuses to update a site older than Drupal 11.3. Below is a dated plan you can follow from today, 28 October 2026.
When does Drupal 10 reach end of life?
On 9 December 2026. drupal.org's core release schedule says so, and adds that no new releases of Drupal 10 will be made after that date. The same week, the week of 7 December, brings Drupal 12.0.0 and Drupal 11.5.0, and ends security support for both 10.6.x and 11.3.x.
Only one Drupal 10 line is still covered today: 10.6.x, the last minor release of Drupal 10. Its latest release, 10.6.20, came out on 21 October 2026. drupal.org's public service announcement of 12 October 2026 says that every version before 10.6.x, and every Drupal 11 version before 11.3.x, is already end of life and no longer supported.
You are not alone. In the week of 18 October 2026, drupal.org's usage statistics counted 245,458 sites reporting Drupal 10, against 264,322 on Drupal 11. Those figures count only sites that report back.
What does "end of life" mean for my site?
The site does not switch off on 10 December. What stops is the fixes. A security flaw found in Drupal 10 core after that date gets no Drupal 10 release. The drupal.org policy issue that set the date also says that no security advisories affecting Drupal 10 will be released in December's security window.
For a site that takes forms, logins or payments, that is the part that matters. Contributed modules follow their own maintainers, and that policy issue left their Drupal 10 support to be settled closer to the Drupal 12 release.
What do I need before I can upgrade to Drupal 11?
Four things, all from drupal.org's Drupal 10 to 11 upgrade guide (updated 21 August 2026) and its requirements pages:
- Drupal 10.3.0 or later. All updates before 10.3.0 were removed in Drupal 11. In practice, be on the latest 10.6.x, the only Drupal 10 line still getting security fixes.
- PHP 8.3 or later. Drupal 11 does not run on PHP 8.1 or 8.2. Drupal 11.4 supports PHP 8.3, 8.4 and 8.5.
- A supported database. For Drupal 11: MariaDB 10.6+, MySQL 8.0+, PostgreSQL 16+ or SQLite 3.45+.
- No dependence on the modules Drupal 11 removed from core: Actions UI, Activity Tracker, Book, Forum, Statistics and Tour. If you use one, move to its contributed version or stop using it before you upgrade.
Then scan your own code. The Upgrade Status module reports which contributed and custom modules are not ready; its 4.3 line (4.3.10, June 2026) installs on Drupal 9, 10 and 11. drupal.org calls it "helpful but not perfect", and pairs it with Drupal Rector, which rewrites deprecated code.
Which version of Drupal 11 should I land on?
11.4 or later. 11.3.x loses security support the week of 7 December, together with Drupal 10. Today the current release is 11.4.11 (21 October 2026). 11.5.0 ships with Drupal 12 and is in beta now (11.5.0-beta1, 15 October 2026).
Landing on 11.4 also puts you where Drupal 12 wants you. Its beta release notes recommend at least 11.4 before upgrading, and its update system refuses to update from Drupal 11.2 or earlier.
What is the timeline, week by week?
- This week (from 28 October): take an inventory. Core version, PHP version, database version, the contributed modules you use and the custom code you own. Install Upgrade Status on a copy of the site, not on production.
- By 6 November: know your list. Which modules have Drupal 11 releases, which need a patch or a replacement, which custom code needs changes, and whether your host offers PHP 8.3 or later.
- Week of 9 November: drupal.org plans the release candidates of Drupal 12.0 and 11.5. For a Drupal 10 site, nothing changes. Don't wait for them.
- By 20 November: run the upgrade on a copy filled from production, the way production will run it. drupal.org's own guide suggests doing it first locally in DDEV, then deploying. Fix what breaks, and repeat.
- By 4 December: have Drupal 11 live in production, with a backup taken immediately before and a way back you have already tested.
- 9 December: Drupal 10 end of life.
The release dates come from drupal.org's schedule. The milestones in between are our suggestion. If your site is large, or carries a lot of custom code, start the rehearsal earlier rather than squeeze the end.
Should I wait for Drupal 12 instead?
No. Drupal 12 cannot update a Drupal 10 site directly: the updates written before 11.3.0 are gone from it, and it refuses to update from 11.2 or earlier. Drupal 12 also requires PHP 8.5, which no Drupal 10 release supports. A Drupal 10 site has to pass through 11 either way, and Drupal 10 stops getting fixes in the week Drupal 12 is due.
Can the upgrade happen without taking the site down?
Usually, yes, when the site can be rebuilt from code and the upgrade is rehearsed on real data first. Our founder drove the Drupal 9 → 11 cutover across a ~400-site healthcare fleet, on live production data, where no organisation on it could accept a downtime window (2023–2026). How we run an upgrade that way, and the traps we have paid for, is in Upgrading Drupal 10 to 11 on live traffic.
What if I can't make it by 9 December?
Then plan the weeks after it on purpose. Stay on the last 10.6.x release, keep backups you have actually restored, read drupal.org's security advisories for every module you run, and keep the upgrade moving. A late upgrade is better than none. An unplanned one, after a flaw is published, is the expensive kind.
Who can do it for me?
Tecnocratica is a founder-led Drupal 11 studio in Colombia. Today the engineer is our founder, so we work business hours on Colombian time (UTC-5), with no 24/7 on-call. We quote an upgrade after reading your code, because a quote that hasn't read it is a guess. An hour of the founder's time costs USD 75. See what we offer, write to us, or ask the concierge on our home page.