Oracle Database End-of-Life Dates: Complete Lifetime Support Guide

By Scott Bissett  ·  Last updated: September 2, 2026  ·  Covers Oracle Database 9i through 26ai  ·  Every date verified against Oracle's Lifetime Support Policy (Effective Date: August 7, 2026) and Oracle's upgrade documentation

Oracle Database does not use a simple "end of life" date. Instead, Oracle's Lifetime Support Policy moves every release through three phases — Premier Support, Extended Support, and Sustaining Support — and the rules differ between Long-Term Releases and Innovation Releases. This guide lays out the exact Premier and Extended Support dates for every Oracle Database version, explains what each phase actually means for security, and tells you which version to move to.

Key Dates at a Glance

• Oracle Database 23: Premier Support ends 2031-12-31
• Oracle Database 21: Premier Support ends 2027-07-31
• Oracle Database 19: Premier Support ends 2029-12-31; Extended Support ends 2032-12-31
• Oracle Database 18: Premier Support ends 2021-06-30
• Oracle Database 12.2: Premier Support ends 2022-03-31
• Oracle Database 12.1: Premier Support ends 2018-07-31; Extended Support ends 2022-07-31
• Oracle Database 11.2: Premier Support ends 2015-01-31; Extended Support ends 2020-12-31

Oracle Database EOL Risk Scores

An end-of-support date on its own does not say how urgent a version is. We publish an EOL Risk Score (0–100) for every tracked release, combining how far past support it is, its attack surface, and whether CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog lists it. The numbers below are live values, rewritten on every build from the same data that powers the product page.

Two things to read out of these numbers. First, the three supported releases score alike: Oracle's lifecycle clock has not started counting against any of them, so the score is carrying attack-surface and exploitation factors only. Second, every release on Sustaining Support scores the same regardless of how long ago its support ended — the recency factor saturates, because a database that has missed a decade of Critical Patch Updates is not meaningfully safer than one that has missed five years. Live values for every release, including 9i and 10g, are on the Oracle Database product page; the methodology is on the EOL Risk Score page.

Every Oracle Database Version: GA, Premier and Extended Support Dates

Premier and Extended Support end dates for every Oracle Database on-premises server release, from Oracle's published Lifetime Support Policy. Cells bound to our data layer are re-checked against the upstream dataset on every build; Oracle's own document is linked beneath the table.

Sourced from Oracle's Lifetime Support Policy for Technology Products (Effective Date August 7, 2026; page 7, “Oracle Database Releases”) — the authoritative PDF Oracle itself publishes, re-read September 2, 2026 — cross-checked against the live data layer that powers the Oracle Database product page. When people search "oracle 9i end of life": 9i Release 2 left Premier Support in July 2007 and Extended Support in July 2010 — every 9i and 10g system has been without vendor security fixes for well over a decade.

Understanding Oracle's Lifetime Support Phases

Oracle applies the same three-phase Lifetime Support Policy to every database release. Knowing which phase your version is in matters more than the version number itself.

Phase 1 – Premier Support (first 5 years for LTR)

Premier Support is the full-support phase included in your standard support contract. It provides bug fixes, security patches and Critical Patch Updates, new certifications, and access to support. For Long-Term Releases this phase lasts about five years from general availability.

Phase 2 – Extended Support (up to 3 additional years, LTR only, paid)

Extended Support is an optional paid add-on, available only for Long-Term Releases, that extends full error correction and security coverage for up to three years beyond Premier Support. Oracle has at times waived the fee for the first year of Extended Support on specific releases. Innovation Releases (such as 21c) do not get Extended Support at all.

Phase 3 – Sustaining Support (indefinite, but no new fixes)

After Extended Support ends, a release moves to Sustaining Support, which Oracle offers indefinitely. Critically, Sustaining Support includes no new security patches, bug fixes, error corrections, or certifications — only access to previously released patches and the knowledge base. From a security and compliance standpoint, a database on Sustaining Support is effectively end of life.

Long-Term Releases vs. Innovation Releases

Since 19c, Oracle has split database releases into two tracks:

• Long-Term Releases (LTR) — for example 19c and 23ai. Supported for about 5 years of Premier Support plus up to 3 years of Extended Support. These are the releases you should standardize on for production.
• Innovation Releases — for example 21c. Supported for roughly 2 years of Premier Support with no Extended Support. Intended for early adopters who want the newest features, not for long-lived production systems.

Premier vs. Extended vs. Sustaining — which one are you actually on?

Added August 17, 2026. The three phases above are the taxonomy; this is the decision. Almost every question people bring to this page reduces to one of three situations, and each has a different answer.

You are on 19c (or 23ai/26ai). You are in Premier Support — full patches, Critical Patch Updates, no add-on fee. 19c's Premier phase runs to December 31, 2029; from January 2030 you would need paid Extended Support (to December 31, 2032) or an upgrade. Nothing is owed today except a plan for 2029, and 19c remains the safe upgrade target for everything older.

You are on 21c. Premier Support runs to July 31, 2027 — and then nothing: 21c is an Innovation Release, and Innovation Releases get no Extended Support. That makes 21c the version with the nearest hard cliff on this page. Plan the move to 19c or 23ai/26ai now.

You are on 18c, 12c or 11g. You are on Sustaining Support, and this is the situation the searches for "11g extended support cost" and "is 11g still supported" are really about. The honest answer: Extended Support for these releases is over — 11.2's ended December 31, 2020, 12.1's July 31, 2022 — and cannot be bought back. Sustaining Support is what remains: you keep access to existing patches and support tickets, but no new security fixes are produced. Every Critical Patch Update since your Extended date has skipped you. The "cost" question has no price on it because there is no product left to buy from Oracle; the choices are an upgrade to 19c (well-trodden, tooling exists for every path from 11.2 up) or third-party extended support, which does exist for out-of-support Oracle Database — see the extended-support market, or tell us your situation via the form on this page.

The one-line test: if your version's Extended Support date is in the past, no new CVE fixes are coming, regardless of what your support contract says. Our analysis of Oracle's July 2026 Critical Patch Update shows what that looks like in practice — the patches shipped for 19c and 23ai, and did not so much as evaluate the older releases.

Oracle Database 19c — The Recommended Release

Oracle Database 19c (released April 25, 2019) is the most widely deployed Oracle release and the long-term home for the 12.2 release family. Premier Support runs through December 31, 2029, and Extended Support is available through December 31, 2032. For most organizations on 11g, 12c, or 18c, 19c is the safest, best-supported upgrade target. For the full 19c story — including how Oracle moved these dates in November 2024, and why "upgrading" 19c to 21c shortens your runway — see our dedicated guide: Oracle 19c End of Support Date: December 31, 2029.

The November 2024 extension carries fine print that most summaries skip: from May 1, 2027, Oracle's 19c coverage no longer includes updates for the BSAFE cryptography libraries, new FIPS 140 certifications, or continued support for the database's bundled Java components. If you run 19c in a regulated environment that depends on FIPS-certified cryptography, your real planning date is mid-2027 — not the end of 2029 printed on the lifecycle chart.

The Java 8 carve-out — 19c's second deadline, in Oracle's own footnotes

Oracle's current Lifetime Support Policy (Effective Date August 7, 2026) states the exclusion precisely: for 19c customers, support for Java 8-related third-party software is excluded during the Premier window from May 1, 2027 through December 31, 2029, and through the entire Extended Support window from January 1, 2030 through December 31, 2032. The document adds that Java 8's own Extended Support ends in December 2030, after which 19c "will no longer receive updates for Java" at all. Oracle names the ports primarily affected — AIX, zLinux, HP-UX, Solaris, and Windows — and directs 19c-on-HP-UX customers to a separate support statement (My Oracle Support Doc ID 3080621.1) with its own end dates.

Read plainly: the December 2029 headline date holds for the core database on mainstream Linux, but if your 19c estate runs on the named ports or depends on its bundled Java or FIPS-certified cryptography, your effective deadline arrives in May 2027 — two and a half years earlier than the chart says. Buying Extended Support to 2032 does not buy those components back. Almost no third-party lifecycle summary carries this carve-out; it is the difference between a 2029 plan and a 2027 problem.

Oracle Database 23ai (26ai) — The Newest Long-Term Release

23ai is Oracle's current long-term release, headlined by built-in AI capabilities such as AI Vector Search. It was originally announced as 23c, renamed 23ai to reflect those AI features, and the release line was later rebranded 26ai — while keeping 23 as the internal version number. Premier Support runs through December 31, 2031, with Extended Support available afterward. It is the recommended target for new deployments that want the longest runway.

Oracle Database 21c — Innovation Release

Oracle Database 21c (released August 13, 2021) is an Innovation Release. Its Premier Support window was extended to July 31, 2027, but it has no Extended Support. Because Innovation Releases are short-lived by design, 21c is not recommended for systems you intend to run for years — move to 19c or 23ai instead.

Legacy Versions — 18c, 12c, and 11g

All of the following are past every supported phase and now receive only Sustaining Support (no new security patches):

• Oracle 18c — Premier Support ended June 30, 2021; no Extended Support. EOL.
• Oracle 12c Release 2 (12.2) — Premier Support ended March 31, 2022; no Extended Support. EOL.
• Oracle 12c Release 1 (12.1) — Extended Support ended July 31, 2022. EOL.
• Oracle 11g Release 2 — Extended Support ended December 31, 2020. EOL.

If you are running any of these, you have been without new security fixes for years. Migrating to 19c (or 23ai) should be treated as a priority, not a backlog item.

Two pieces of fine print most lifecycle charts omit

The 12.1 edition split. Oracle's own policy document lists 12.1 four times, and the editions did not end together: Standard Edition (SE) and Standard Edition One (SE1) left Premier Support in August 2016 — nearly two years before Enterprise Edition and SE2, whose Premier ran to July 2018 — and SE/SE1 had no Extended Support at all. The 12.1 Extended Support that did exist (to July 2022) was also offered for its final year only on specific platforms. If an audit asks when "12.1" lost support, the correct answer depends on which edition you ran.

What "March 2022" really was for 12.2. The 12.2 end date most trackers publish — March 31, 2022, the date our table shows — was not ordinary Premier Support. Oracle's policy records 12.2 Premier error correction ending November 30, 2020, followed by a Limited Error Correction period (December 1, 2020 – March 31, 2022) that delivered only Severity-1 production fixes and security patches, on listed platforms, and explicitly excluded functional fixes, third-party certifications, Java-dependent components, and cryptography/TLS updates. In practice, full 12.2 support ended in 2020; what ran to 2022 was a narrowing bridge.

The Dates That Matter Next

Read top to bottom, this is the Oracle Database calendar for the next six years. The two rows most lifecycle charts omit are the first and the fifth: they come from footnotes in Oracle's policy document, and they land before the headline dates.

Direct Upgrade Paths, by Oracle's Own Rules

Where you can go depends on where you are, and Oracle's upgrade guides are explicit about it. The 19c upgrade guide lists exactly four releases that upgrade directly to 19c: 11.2.0.4, 12.1.0.2, 12.2.0.1 and 18c. Anything earlier — 11.2.0.3 and below, 12.1.0.1, all of 11.1 and 10g — must first upgrade to one of those intermediate releases. The 26ai upgrade guide (Oracle's documentation now titles the line “Oracle AI Database”) is narrower still: direct upgrades come only from 19c and 21c; every earlier release goes through 19c first.

Two practical notes from the same guides. Oracle's AutoUpgrade tool drives the supported hops, and for a two-step upgrade the pre-upgrade checks run once per hop. And a hop to 21c is never the right intermediate: it adds a step and lands on the release with the earliest cliff on this page.

How to Check Your Oracle Database Version

Connect with SQL*Plus (or any SQL client) and run:

SELECT BANNER_FULL FROM V$VERSION;

Or, for the version number on its own:

SELECT version_full FROM PRODUCT_COMPONENT_VERSION
WHERE product LIKE 'Oracle Database%';

What Actually Happens When Oracle Support Ends

Nothing breaks on the date. The database starts Monday morning exactly as it did Friday. Three things change, and they carry different urgency:

• New CVEs stop being fixed. Every quarterly Critical Patch Update from that point forward ships for supported releases only — our analysis of the July 2026 CPU shows exactly which versions were patched and which were not so much as evaluated. Risk accrues silently rather than arriving as an outage.
• Auditors treat it as a finding. PCI DSS, HIPAA and SOC 2 require known vulnerabilities to be remediated within defined windows; a database on Sustaining Support cannot meet that through patching, so it becomes a documented exception with compensating controls — justified at every audit, forever, until you migrate.
• The word "supported" stops meaning what your risk register thinks it means. Oracle will still take the call under Sustaining Support; new fixes are simply out of scope. Escalation paths that assume "Oracle will patch it" no longer hold.

Your Four Options When Oracle Database Support Ends

There are four realistic paths, and the right one depends far more on how long the system needs to survive than on the version it runs today.

How to choose in one question

How many more years does this database need to run? Under a year — extended support (Oracle's if still on sale, third-party if not) is usually cheaper than an emergency migration. One to three years — migrate to 19c or 26ai; support bought repeatedly costs more than doing the project once, and the project only gets harder as the version ages. Indefinitely — migrate to a Long-Term Release and diarize its dates now; databases described as "temporary" are the ones that reach end of support twice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Resources — the Oracle lifecycle series

• Oracle Database version data on endoflife.ai — live dates and EOL Risk Scores for every release
• Oracle 19c End of Support: a Date That Already Moved Once, and the Trap Waiting in 21c
• Oracle's July 2026 Critical Patch Update — What It Patched, and What It Silently Skipped
• Oracle's Legacy Estate: the Products Still Running Long After Support Ended
• Oracle Solaris End of Life Guide
• Oracle Linux End of Life Guide
• RHEL End of Life Guide