Drupal 10 end of life: a checklist before 9 December 2026

Drupal 10 reaches end of life on 9 December 2026, the same week Drupal 12 is released. After that date there are no more Drupal 10 releases, including security fixes. Your site will keep running, but any security problem found in Drupal 10 from then on stays open.

The good news: going from Drupal 10 to Drupal 11 is an upgrade, not a rebuild. Content, URLs and design stay as they are. Most of the work is checking that everything around core is ready. This checklist walks through it in the order we do it.

1. Find out which Drupal 10 version you are on

Log in and open Reports → Status report. The first line shows the Drupal version.

• 10.3 or later: you can upgrade straight to Drupal 11.
• 10.2 or earlier: update to the latest Drupal 10 release first. Drupal only supports the jump to 11 from 10.3.0 or later.

While you are on that page, note the PHP version and the database version. You will need them in step 3.

2. List every module and theme

Open Extend and Appearance and write down what is enabled. Split it into three groups:

• Contributed modules and themes from drupal.org
• Custom modules and themes written for your site
• Anything you no longer use, which can be uninstalled before the upgrade

Removing what you don’t use is the cheapest part of any upgrade. Every module you drop is one less thing to make compatible.

3. Check your hosting can run Drupal 11

Drupal 11 needs a more recent platform than Drupal 10:

If your host is behind on any of these, ask them now. Shared hosts can take weeks to move a site to a newer PHP or database version, and this is often the step that holds up the whole upgrade.

You will also want an up-to-date Composer, the tool that installs Drupal and its modules. Running composer self-update takes care of that.

4. Run Upgrade Status

Install the Upgrade Status module on a copy of your site, not on the live site. It scans your contributed and custom code and reports:

• which contributed modules already have a Drupal 11 release
• which ones need updating first
• which custom code uses features removed in Drupal 11

This report is your to-do list. For contributed modules the fix is usually just updating to a newer release. Custom code may need small changes, and tools like Drupal Rector can make many of them automatically.

5. Decide what to do about modules with no Drupal 11 release

Most popular modules support Drupal 11 by now, but older or niche ones may not. For each one, there are four options:

1. Wait for a release, if one is clearly on the way.
2. Patch it: compatibility fixes are often already posted on the module’s issue queue.
3. Replace it with a maintained module that does the same job.
4. Remove it, if the feature is no longer needed.

This is the part of an upgrade that varies most from site to site, so decide early.

6. Do the upgrade on a copy of the site

Never upgrade the live site directly. The safe order is:

1. Take a full backup of the database and files.
2. Make a staging copy of the site.
3. Update to the latest Drupal 10 release and update all modules.
4. Fix everything Upgrade Status reported.
5. Upgrade core to Drupal 11 with Composer and run the database updates.
6. Test: logins, forms, search, editorial workflows, views and any integrations.

7. Plan the release

When staging works, release to live at a quiet time:

• Fresh backup immediately before you start
• A written rollback plan: how to restore the backup and the previous code if something goes wrong
• A check of the error log straight after go-live

How long does it take?

A small site on Drupal 10.3 or later, with well-maintained modules and no custom code, can be upgraded in a few days. Sites with custom modules, a custom theme or modules that need replacing take longer, so plan for a few weeks. With 9 December close, now is a sensible time to start.

What about Drupal 12?

Drupal 12 is released the week of 7 December 2026. For most sites the right move now is Drupal 11, while modules are ready for it, and to plan Drupal 12 later, in the same calm way.

Not sure which version your site runs? Our free site check tells you in seconds. If you would rather we did the whole upgrade, see Drupal 10 to 11 upgrade.