Joomla 5 end of life: what changes on 13 Oct 2026

Joomla 5 reaches the end of regular bugfix support on 13 October 2026 and the end of security-only support on 12 October 2027. Nothing breaks on the first date: your site keeps running, and security patches keep coming for another year. After the second date the Joomla Project ships no fixes of any kind for 5.x, and no extended support has been announced. So the real deadline is October 2027. Use the time now to test the Joomla 6 upgrade while nothing is urgent. You can spin up a Joomla test site in about 30 seconds and try it on a copy that does not matter.

When does Joomla 5 reach end of life?

End of life means the Joomla Project stops releasing updates for a version. Joomla 5 has two end dates, both set in the official Joomla Project Roadmap, last updated on 17 September 2026. The roadmap lists the “End of regular bugfix Support for 5.x: 13 October 2026” and the “End of security fix only Support for 5.x: 12 October 2027.” The Joomla Project repeated both dates in its 18 August 2026 release announcement, “Joomla 6.1.3 & 5.4.8 Security & Bugfix Release.”

The pattern is the same for every Joomla major version. The Joomla Software Release Cyclestates that “after the x.4.0 release date, we are fixing bugs for one year and making security fixes for two years.” Joomla 5.4.0 shipped on 14 October 2025, so both dates follow directly from that rule.

What actually changes on 13 October 2026?

On 13 October 2026 the Joomla Project stops fixing ordinary bugs in Joomla 5, and nothing else changes that day. Your site keeps loading, the administrator keeps working, and Joomla Update keeps offering 5.4.x security releases. The difference is what those releases contain: a fix for a broken feature or an editor glitch will land in Joomla 6, not in 5.4.

Joomla 5.4 was never meant to grow either. The release cycle describes the last minor version of each major as “a bridge release” that “doesn’t contain new features and is meant as a preparation for the next major release.” One gap to know about: the Joomla Project has not published a detailed list of what qualifies as a security fix during the second year, so treat any non-security bug you hit after 13 October 2026 as permanent on 5.4.

What happens after 12 October 2027?

After 12 October 2027 Joomla 5 receives no updates at all, security fixes included. As of September 2026 no extended support has been announced for Joomla 5 by the Joomla Project or by a third party. The one precedent does not help: the paid Joomla Extended Long Term Support program, which the project ran for Joomla 3, ended on 17 February 2025 and only ever covered 3.x.

Joomla 7 will likely arrive around the same time. The release cycle plans major versions for “October in a year with an odd year number,” which points to October 2027, though the roadmap does not yet list a Joomla 7 date. In other words, by the time Joomla 5 goes dark, the site you did not upgrade will be two major versions behind.

Is your PHP version the real deadline?

For many Joomla 5 sites it is, because PHP support ends before Joomla 5 support does. Joomla 5 runs on PHP 8.1 or newer, while Joomla 6 needs PHP 8.3 as a minimum, per the Joomla manual’s Joomla 5.4 technical requirements and Joomla 6.1 technical requirements. The PHP dates come from php.net’s Supported Versions page.

Read the table from your own server outward. A Joomla 5 site on PHP 8.1 is already on unsupported PHP, and one on PHP 8.2 loses PHP security fixes on 31 December 2026, ten months before Joomla 5 does. Many hosts retire end-of-life PHP versions on their own schedule, so check your host’s PHP policy: the first forced change may come from them. For example, a Joomla 5.4 site on PHP 8.2 today has two deadlines, 31 December 2026 for PHP and 12 October 2027 for Joomla. Moving to PHP 8.3 now clears the first and also meets the Joomla 6 floor, which our guide to Joomla system requirements covers in full.

How many sites still run Joomla 5?

More than run Joomla 6, by a wide margin. In September 2026 the W3Techs usage statistics for Joomla showed 20.6% of Joomla sites on version 5 against 8.7% on version 6, with 52.2% still on Joomla 3. Joomla itself runs 1.1% of all websites in the same survey. Put simply, for every site already on Joomla 6 there are more than two still on Joomla 5, and each of them faces the same two dates.

The Joomla 3 figure is the warning. Joomla 3 left security support on 17 August 2023 and its paid extended support ended on 17 February 2025, yet it is still the most common version in use. Sites rarely move on their own. The ones that upgrade calmly are the ones that tested the move before a deadline forced it.

Do you have to upgrade to Joomla 6 now?

No, and the Joomla Project says so directly. Its 18 August 2026 announcement tells Joomla 5 users “Your site is not at risk if you don’t upgrade now,” because 5.4 keeps its security fixes until 12 October 2027. You have three reasonable options:

1. Stay on 5.4 for now and apply every 5.4.x security release, with a firm plan to move before 12 October 2027.
2. Upgrade to Joomla 6.1 now, the current stable line at 6.1.3, which is supported for bugfixes until 17 October 2028 and for security fixes until 16 October 2029.
3. Wait for Joomla 6.2, due on 13 October 2026 (see what is new in Joomla 6.2), and upgrade after its first patch release.

Whichever you pick, the upgrade itself is smaller than a Joomla 3 migration. The Joomla 6.0 and 5.4 release announcement calls the move from 5.4 to 6 “an upgrade, not a migration.” Our step-by-step guide to upgrading Joomla 5 to 6 walks through it, and the comparison of Joomla 5 vs Joomla 6 covers what changes for templates and extensions.

How do you test the upgrade before the deadline?

Run the upgrade once on a throwaway copy of your stack before you touch production. The official Joomla 5 to 6 planning and upgrade guide assumes you start from Joomla 5.4.x and uses the Joomla Next update channel with its Pre-Update Check, which flags extensions that are not ready. A disposable Joomla 5.4 site lets you run that exact flow in minutes:

1. Open a Joomla 5.4 test site on PHP 8.3. Spin up a clean Joomla 5.4 site and pick PHP 8.3, the lowest PHP version Joomla 6 accepts, so the upgrade has a server it can run on.
2. Add the extensions and template you run. Install the same extensions and template your live site uses, at the versions you run today, so the test reflects your real stack.
3. Switch the Update Channel to Joomla Next. In System, Update, Joomla, open Options and set the Update Channel to Joomla Next. The Pre-Update Check then lists anything that is not ready for Joomla 6.
4. Run the upgrade and click through the site. Run the update to Joomla 6, then open the pages, forms, and admin screens you rely on. Anything that breaks here would have broken on production.

Once the upgrade runs clean, check whether your extensions still depend on the “Behaviour - Backward Compatibility 6” plugin that Joomla 5.4 introduced to ease the move, as the official upgrade guide explains. For a closer look at vetting each extension, see how to test a Joomla extension online, and for the wider method, how to test a Joomla update before going live. You can also open a clean Joomla 6.1 site next to it to compare the two admins side by side.

Conclusion

Joomla 5 end of life comes in two steps: bugfixes stop on 13 October 2026 and security fixes stop on 12 October 2027, with no extended support announced after that. Nothing breaks on the first date, and the Joomla Project says a site is not at risk if it does not upgrade now. For sites on PHP 8.1 or 8.2 the real clock is PHP, with PHP 8.2 losing support on 31 December 2026. Use the time to test the Joomla 6 upgrade on a copy, then upgrade on your own schedule. The free Joomla test site guide covers every way to get that copy, and the fastest is one click.

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