Ubuntu 22.04 end of life: plan the move now
Standard support for Ubuntu 22.04 "Jammy Jellyfish" ends in May 2027. There is still time to do it properly: here is where to go, what it costs to wait, and what breaks on the way.
- Standard support
- Ends May 2027, 206 days left
- With Ubuntu Pro
- Security fixes to May 2032
- Move to
- 24.04 (to May 2029) or 26.04 (to May 2031)
- Path
- 22.04 → 24.04 → 26.04 in place, or a rebuild on 26.04
Why move before the date
22.04 is still supported, and nothing changes on the day itself: servers keep running and apt keeps working. What stops in May 2027 is the free flow of security fixes. From then on, only machines with Ubuntu Pro get them.
The pressure arrives earlier than that. Third-party repositories (the popular PHP PPA, database vendors, monitoring agents) drop old releases ahead of Canonical. Customers' security questionnaires ask about software nearing end of support, not just past it. And a project started a month before the deadline has no room for the problems a rehearsal turns up.
There is a second date hidden inside 22.04: its PHP 8.1 reached end of life upstream at the end of 2025. Ubuntu still patches its own package, but scanners and customers go by the version number.
Your options
| Option | What it costs | What you get | When it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upgrade in place to 24.04 | One planned window | The same server, IP and data, supported to May 2029 | A well-kept server with few third-party repositories |
| In place, on to 26.04 | A second window after the first | Supported to May 2031, through two upgrades of testing | A server that must keep its identity, with an owner who will test twice |
| Rebuild on 26.04 | A new server running alongside the old one for a few days | A clean install supported to May 2031, built from a written recipe, the old server kept as the way back | Most servers with years of changes on them |
| Ubuntu Pro on 22.04 | $500 a year per physical server (all its VMs); free for up to five machines; hourly through AWS, Azure or Google Cloud | Security fixes for Main and Universe to May 2032, plus Livepatch | A server retiring before 2032, or time bought for a bigger move |
Prices are Canonical's list prices, read from ubuntu.com on 6 November 2026. Dates from Canonical's release cycle page.
24.04 or 26.04?
On a rebuild, 26.04. It costs the same work as 24.04 and buys two more years of standard support. 26.04.1 is out and upgrades to it from 24.04 opened on 29 September 2026, the usual sign that it is ready for production.
In place, 24.04 first. It is one hop, and 24.04 has had two and a half years of fixes, so its upgrade path is well worn. Going on to 26.04 can then be its own project, before 24.04's date in May 2029.
The deciding question is usually the application, not the OS. If the code is not ready for PHP 8.5 or MySQL 8.4, 24.04 (PHP 8.3, MySQL 8.0) is the easier landing.
What changes on the way up
These are the changes that break things, release by release.
| Package | 22.04 | 24.04 | 26.04 | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PHP | 8.1 | 8.3 | 8.5 | Deprecations from 8.1 become errors in later releases. Old WordPress plugins and Laravel versions are where it shows. Test every site, or run the version you need from a supported PHP repository. |
| Python | 3.10 | 3.12 | 3.14 | Virtualenvs must be rebuilt. From 24.04, pip install outside a virtualenv is blocked. |
| MySQL | 8.0 | 8.0 | 8.4 | MySQL 8.0 itself ended in April 2026. On 26.04, accounts still using mysql_native_password are locked out by default: move them to caching_sha2_password first. |
| PostgreSQL | 14 | 16 | 18 | The old cluster keeps running on the old version after the upgrade. Move it with pg_upgradecluster, after a backup. |
| OpenSSH | 8.9 | 9.6 | 10.2 | 24.04 starts SSH from a systemd socket, so check a custom port after the upgrade. 26.04 removes DSA keys entirely. |
| sudo | sudo | sudo | sudo-rs | 26.04 uses a Rust rewrite of sudo by default (the original stays available as sudo.ws). Unusual sudoers rules and sudo-ldap, which is removed, need checking. |
| Core utilities | GNU | GNU | Rust | Most of the basic commands are Rust rewrites on 26.04. Shell scripts that rely on unusual flags or exact output are worth running on the rehearsal copy. |
| systemd | 249 | 255 | 259 | 26.04 removes cgroup v1, which very old container runtimes and Java versions still expect. It is also the last release to run System V init scripts. |
| apt sources | sources.list | deb822 | deb822 | 24.04 moves Ubuntu's own sources to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources. Scripts that edit sources.list stop having any effect. |
Before you upgrade
Find every 22.04 server. lsb_release -ds on each one, and pro status to see whether Pro is attached.
List what came from outside Ubuntu. grep -r ^deb /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ shows the extra repositories. The upgrade switches them off, and each needs re-adding for the new release, or replacing.
Check the application against the new versions. The PHP and MySQL rows above decide most projects. Run the test suite, or at least the main pages and jobs, against PHP 8.3 or 8.5 before the server changes.
Find old MySQL accounts before going to 26.04: SELECT user, host, plugin FROM mysql.user; lists any still on mysql_native_password.
Take a snapshot you can restore, plus a separate database dump, and rehearse on a copy. Every surprise found there costs nothing.
Then the real window: sudo do-release-upgrade, a reboot, every site checked. On a rebuild, the switch is a DNS or IP change once the new server has passed its tests.
How I run the move
- 01Inventory and a fixed quote
What's on the server, what depends on it, and which of the changes above will bite. In place or rebuild, with the reasons.
- 02Rehearsal on staging
A copy upgraded or rebuilt first, every site and job tested, every problem fixed there.
- 03The window, with a way back
The real move at a time you agree, the old server or a snapshot kept ready, then two weeks' stabilisation.
Upgrades and migrations →
Questions
When does Ubuntu 22.04 reach end of life?
Standard support ends in May 2027. After that Canonical ships security fixes for 22.04 only to machines with Ubuntu Pro (Expanded Security Maintenance), which runs to May 2032.
Should I upgrade 22.04 to 24.04 or 26.04?
In place, 24.04 is one hop and 26.04 is two. On a rebuild, go straight to 26.04: it is supported to May 2031, two years longer than 24.04. Either way, test first: most breakage comes from PHP, Python and MySQL changing version.
Can I upgrade 22.04 straight to 26.04?
Not in place. do-release-upgrade goes one LTS at a time, so it is 22.04 to 24.04, then 24.04 to 26.04. Upgrades from 24.04 to 26.04 opened on 29 September 2026.
My scanner flags PHP 8.1 on 22.04. Is that right?
Partly. The PHP project ended 8.1 at the end of 2025, but Ubuntu keeps backporting security fixes into the PHP 8.1 package it ships while 22.04 is supported. Scanners go by the version number, so expect the flag either way, and expect customers to ask about it.
Is Ubuntu Pro worth it for 22.04?
As a bridge, yes. Canonical lists $500 a year per physical server covering all its VMs, a free tier for up to five machines, and hourly billing on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. It keeps the core packages patched to 2032 but does nothing about the versions ageing underneath your applications.
How long does the move take to plan?
Start with an inventory of every 22.04 server and what runs on it. The rehearsal on a copy is where the time goes, so the earlier it starts, the less the deadline matters.
Running 22.04?
Tell me what's on the servers. I'll tell you whether to go to 24.04 or 26.04, in place or rebuilt, and give you a fixed quote.