Bazel End of Life (EOL) Dates & Support Timeline
Complete end-of-life dates, support windows, and security status for all Bazel versions. Data sourced from endoflife.date and official vendor documentation. Updated at every deploy.
Bazel 9 is supported until December 31, 2028, its end-of-support date. The next Bazel version to reach end of life is 7, on December 31, 2026. 3 of 6 tracked Bazel versions are past end of life; the most recent to reach it, 6, did so on December 31, 2025. The full Bazel lifecycle, with every version's release and end-of-support date, is in the table below.
Running an EOL version? Get matched with support options — free ↓| Version | Latest Release | Release Date | EOL Date | Days | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 LTS | 4.2.4 | Jan 21, 2021 | Jan 31, 2024 | 966 days past EOL | EOL |
| 5 LTS | 5.4.1 | Jan 19, 2022 | Jan 31, 2025 | 600 days past EOL | EOL |
| 6 LTS | 6.6.0 | Dec 19, 2022 | Dec 31, 2025 | 266 days past EOL | EOL |
| 7 LTS | 7.7.1 | Dec 11, 2023 | Dec 31, 2026 | 99 days remaining | Warning |
| 8 LTS | 8.8.0 | Dec 9, 2024 | Dec 31, 2027 | 464 days remaining | Active |
| 9 LTS | 9.2.0 | Jan 20, 2026 | Dec 31, 2028 | 830 days remaining | Active |
Live EOL badge for your README — updates automatically at every build.
[](https://endoflife.ai/bazel)
Bazel lifecycle status — the real story
Bazel cuts a new long-term-support major from HEAD roughly every twelve months. An LTS release is Active while it is current, then enters Maintenance — where the Bazel team only promises to backport critical security and OS-compatibility fixes — and becomes Deprecated after two years in Maintenance. Rolling releases, cut from HEAD about every two weeks, are previews of the next LTS and can carry incompatible changes.
So a Bazel LTS is fully supported for about a year and security-maintained for roughly two more; the end-of-life dates above are the end of that maintenance window.
Verified against the vendor's lifecycle documentation on August 22, 2026.
Bazel release and support pattern
Across the 6 release lines with a published release date, Bazel has shipped a new line roughly every 1 year (median interval). A line typically stays supported for about 3 years from its release to its end-of-life date. 6 of the 6 tracked lines are designated long-term support, which is where the longer windows sit.
Of the 6 release lines tracked, 3 are past end of life and 3 are still within support. The newest line, 9, was released January 20, 2026. The next scheduled end of life is 7 on December 31, 2026 — 98 days from this build. The longest-supported line currently published is 9, to December 31, 2028.
Computed from the tracked release data at every build — the figures above are the dates in the table, restated, not an editorial estimate.
What does Bazel end of life mean for your organization?
When a version of Bazel reaches end of life, the maintainers stop issuing security patches. Vulnerabilities discovered after this date are publicly disclosed on the National Vulnerability Database, exploit code appears on GitHub, and your systems remain permanently exposed.
The CVE blind spot: A CVE-based scan does not show the accumulation of unpatched vulnerabilities in EOL software. Some scanners flag unsupported versions of common products, but coverage varies, and none of them give you the date in advance. With a zero-day, nobody knows about the vulnerability. With EOL software, the vulnerability is public — listed, rated, and often weaponized — but no vendor patch is coming. This is one of the most dangerous gaps in enterprise security posture.
Organizations running EOL Bazel should treat it as a vulnerability class in their risk register, apply compensating controls (network segmentation, enhanced monitoring, access restriction), and prioritize migration to a supported version.
Your options when Bazel reaches end of life
There are four realistic paths. Which one is right depends far more on how long the system needs to keep running than on the version you are on today.
| Option | Best when | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Move to a supported version | The system will outlive the current version's support window and you can schedule the work | Budget for compatibility testing, not just the upgrade itself — that is where the real cost sits |
| Replace the component | The project is unmaintained, or a better-supported alternative exists | The replacement has its own lifecycle and its own end-of-life date — you are changing vendors, not escaping the problem |
| Buy extended support | Migration is genuinely underway but cannot finish before the deadline, or the workload is frozen by certification or a third-party application | A bridge, not a destination — every year purchased is a year the migration still has to happen |
| Document accepted risk | The system is isolated, short-lived, or scheduled for retirement | Only defensible with real compensating controls and a written decision — auditors treat undocumented end-of-life software as a finding |
How to choose, in one question: how many more years does this system need to run? Under a year, extended support (where it exists) is usually cheaper than an emergency migration. One to three years, migrate — support purchased repeatedly costs more than doing the project once, and the project only gets harder as the version ages. Indefinitely, migrate now and plan the next migration before it surprises you.
Worth saying plainly, because vendors selling extended support rarely will: extended support is often the more expensive choice over a multi-year horizon. It is the right answer when a deadline is genuinely unreachable, not as a default. Compare the annual fee against the one-time cost of migrating before committing to either.
Formalizing decisions like this across your estate? Our free EOL policy template is a ready-to-adopt policy with risk tiers, remediation SLAs, and audit mapping — no signup, free to use and share.
Extended Support Options
If you cannot migrate immediately, extended support vendors provide continued security patches for EOL Bazel versions. This is a bridge, not a permanent solution — plan your migration in parallel.
Bazel has 3 versions past end of life — security patches have stopped, but CVE disclosures haven't. Extended support past the official date exists for many products in this position — whether it exists for Bazel is exactly what we check. Tell us where to reach you and we'll reply with matched options and pricing guidance — or an honest "no vendor covers this."