PHP 8.2 Reaches End of Life on 31 December 2026: 56 Days Remaining

Updated 5 November 2026. PHP 8.2 exits security support on 31 December 2026. That's 56 days from today. After that date, the PHP project will release no further patches, not even for critical vulnerabilities. Anyone running production servers on PHP 8.2 must have their migration plan finalised before the festive period, when support teams (both internal and external) slow down their responses and securing a maintenance window becomes far more difficult.

Official dates

The table published by php.net is as follows:

Branch	Initial Release	Active Support Until	Security Support Until
8.2	8 Dec 2022	31 Dec 2024	31 Dec 2026
8.3	23 Nov 2023	31 Dec 2025	31 Dec 2027
8.4	21 Nov 2024	31 Dec 2026	31 Dec 2028
8.5	20 Nov 2025	31 Dec 2027	31 Dec 2029

Branch: 8.2. Initial Release: 8 Dec 2022. Active Support Until: 3 years, 10 months ago. Security Support Until: 31 Dec 2024. Notes: 1 year, 10 months ago, and security support ends on 31 December 2026, as stated on the official page itself. The cycle is the same for each branch: two years of active support, with bug and security fixes in regular releases, then another two years of security patches only.

On 21 October 2026, the project released version 8.2.35, a security release addressing two critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-109618, CVE-2026-109619) that can allow unauthenticated remote code execution. It's the final reminder of what will be lost from 1 January 2027: there will be no more releases like this for the 8.2 branch.

Checklist two months before deadline

For those who haven't yet completed the migration, with 56 days until EOL, it's worth following these steps in order:

1. Verify the production version. From the command line: php -v. If the response starts with 8.2.x (or earlier versions), the server is in the risk zone.
2. Check the compatibility of major WordPress plugins before upgrading the PHP version on your hosting: e-commerce, caching and security plugins are those most likely to break after a version jump.
3. Verify the CMS minimum requirement. WordPress.org states as the recommended requirement: PHP version 8.3 or greater, noting that earlier versions have reached their official end of support and can expose the site to security vulnerabilities.
4. Schedule the update window before the Christmas holidays, when hosting support teams and plugin developers slow down their ticket responses.

Where to go next

Those needing to choose a migration target have two options with a long runway: PHP 8.4, supported until 31 December 2028, or PHP 8.5, until 31 December 2029, both according to the official php.net table. PHP 8.3 remains a bridging option, but expires in turn on 31 December 2027.

Source: php.net/supported-versions.php, consulted 5 November 2026.