Why Q4 2026 Is the Most Expensive Time to Migrate Drupal

Drupal 7's support ended in January 2025. Drupal 10 reaches end of life on December 9, 2026.

For enterprises still running either version, 2026 is not a planning year; it's a deadline year.

For most CTOs, Q4 is a sprint toward the finish line, closing out budgets, freezing code for the holidays, and planning the next year’s roadmap.

But in 2026, Q4 isn’t the finish line; it’s already a trap.

Here's why: Drupal 12 is expected to be released in mid-to-late 2026, with three possible launch windows: June, August, or December.

That uncertainty alone makes Q4 planning unreliable. Add to it the annual holiday code freeze at most enterprises, and the predictable Q4 spike in agency demand, and you have a quarter where every variable works against you.

The Cost of Waiting to Migrate Drupal

The Innovation Tax: Industry research shows that enterprises spend between 60% and 80% of their IT budgets maintaining existing systems, leaving as little as 20 cents of every dollar for innovation, new features, or competitive differentiation. Every month on a legacy Drupal version deepens that imbalance. 

The Talent Gap: Senior Drupal architects are already in short supply. Agencies that build Drupal migrations are booking Q3 and Q4 engagements months in advance, and those who wait typically pay a higher premium for expedited timelines.

The practical cutoff is June. Organizations that haven't secured a migration partner by mid-year are unlikely to be live on Drupal 11 before the December EOL deadline.

The Productivity Drain: Research from CodeScene estimates that developers spend up to 42% of their time managing technical debt, the equivalent of two full workdays per week lost to maintaining code that should have been modernized. An earlier migration recovers that capacity for your engineering team in the same fiscal year.

The Modernization ROI: Modernizing to Drupal 11 isn't just about avoiding risk; it's about unlocking capacity. Organizations on current Drupal versions benefit from improved caching and streamlined deployments that reduce infrastructure costs and time-to-market

The Risk That Doesn't Stay in IT

Organizations still running Drupal 7 are operating on software that has received no security patches since January 2025. 

But even those on Drupal 10 face a ticking clock. When Drupal 10 security support ends in December 2026, any unpatched vulnerability becomes an unmitigated risk.

For enterprises subject to GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS, running unsupported software isn't just a technical gap; it's a compliance violation that auditors flag, and regulators penalize.

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Don't Let December Decide for You

The Drupal 10 EOL deadline is December 2026. But the real deadline already passed for organizations that haven't started planning. 

The organizations that migrate in Q2 reclaim budget, accelerate delivery, and enter 2027 positioned for Drupal 12.

The ones that wait until Q4 will spend more, ship less, and inherit technical debt that outlasts the migration itself.

 The window is narrowing. Move now.

Book a Migration Readiness Audit.