OpenBSD End of Life (EOL) Dates & Support Timeline

OpenBSD lifecycle status — the real story

OpenBSD's FAQ states the rule: when a security issue is found, the fix is backported to the two most recent OpenBSD releases as errata and announced on the mailing list. A release is therefore supported for as long as it is one of the newest two — about a year, given the project's two-releases-a-year rhythm visible in the table above.

There is no extended support and no long-term release. The upgrade path is also strict: upgrades are supported only from one release to the release immediately following it, so a system left two releases behind has to step through each one.

Verified against the vendor's lifecycle documentation on August 22, 2026.

OpenBSD release and support pattern

Across the 59 release lines with a published release date, OpenBSD has shipped a new line roughly every 6 months (median interval). A line typically stays supported for about 1 year from its release to its end-of-life date (measured on the 57 lines with both dates published).

Of the 59 release lines tracked, 57 are past end of life and 2 are still within support. The newest line, 7.9, was released May 19, 2026. No end-of-life date is currently published for the 2 supported lines.

Computed from the tracked release data at every build — the figures above are the dates in the table, restated, not an editorial estimate.

OpenBSD security intelligence

CISA KEV history: OpenBSD is named in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog 1 time, most recently on 2022-03-25. Derived from CISA's live catalog at every build.

What does OpenBSD end of life mean for your organization?

When a version of OpenBSD 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 OpenBSD 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 OpenBSD 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.

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 OpenBSD versions. This is a bridge, not a permanent solution — plan your migration in parallel.

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