Drupal 10 reaches end of life on 9 December 2026. After that date there will be no more Drupal 10 releases, including security fixes. If your website, or your CiviCRM installation, runs on Drupal 10, now is the time to plan the move to Drupal 11.
The good news: unlike the jump from Drupal 7, moving from Drupal 10 to Drupal 11 is an upgrade, not a rebuild. For a well-maintained site it is usually a contained, predictable piece of work. This guide explains what’s changing, what to check and how to plan it.
What’s happening in December 2026
Drupal follows a regular release cycle. According to Drupal.org’s release schedule:
- Drupal 12 is due in the week of 7 December 2026
- Drupal 10 reaches end of life on 9 December 2026, and security support for Drupal 10.6 and Drupal 11.3 ends that week
- Drupal 11.4 remains supported until April 2027, with later Drupal 11 releases supported beyond that
In practice, that means staying on Drupal 10 leaves you without security fixes, and even on Drupal 11 you need to keep up with minor releases.
Why you shouldn’t wait
- Security: once support ends, newly discovered vulnerabilities won’t be fixed for Drupal 10
- Modules: contributed modules will gradually drop Drupal 10 support, so updates and fixes stop arriving
- Hosting: Drupal 11 requires PHP 8.3 or newer, and hosting providers continue to retire older PHP versions
- Data protection: if your site handles personal data, for example through CiviCRM donations or memberships, running unsupported software makes it harder to show you’ve taken appropriate security measures
How hard is the upgrade?
For most sites, the upgrade from Drupal 10 to Drupal 11 involves:
- Updating to the latest Drupal 10 release and making sure everything works
- Running the Upgrade Status module, which lists deprecated code and modules that aren’t yet Drupal 11 compatible
- Updating or replacing contributed modules, as most popular modules already support Drupal 11
- Fixing custom code: custom modules and themes may use functions that have been removed
- Checking hosting: PHP 8.3 or newer, and a supported database version
- Upgrading core with Composer, then testing thoroughly on a staging copy before going live
The effort depends mainly on how many custom modules you have, how up to date the site already is, and whether any modules you rely on have been abandoned.
What about CiviCRM?
If you run CiviCRM on Drupal, the CRM needs to be on a version that supports Drupal 11 before you upgrade the website. Recent CiviCRM releases support Drupal 11, but older installations may need a CiviCRM upgrade first. That is worth doing anyway, as CiviCRM security releases only cover current versions.
Check the parts of your site that connect the two: Webform CiviCRM, payment processors such as Stripe or GoCardless, and any custom integrations. These are the areas most likely to need attention.
Should you go straight to Drupal 12?
Not usually. Drupal 12 arrives in December, and many contributed modules will take time to support it. For most organisations the sensible path is to move to the latest Drupal 11 now, then plan Drupal 12 for later in 2027 once the module ecosystem has caught up.
A simple plan for the next few weeks
- This week: confirm your Drupal and CiviCRM versions and list your custom modules
- Next: run Upgrade Status on a copy of the site to see what needs work
- Then: agree a fixed scope and budget, and book the work before the holiday period
- Before go-live: test forms, payments, member areas and scheduled jobs on staging
If you’re still on Drupal 7, the route is different: read Drupal 7 end of life: your options and what they cost.
Need a hand?
We look after Drupal and CiviCRM sites for UK charities, membership bodies and businesses, and can carry out the upgrade, test it on staging and handle the switchover. See our migration and upgrade services, or get in touch for a fixed-price quote.