By Greg Nowak. Updated 18 October 2026.
If your website still runs Drupal 10, the immediate priority is getting it onto a supported Drupal 11 release before December 9. Drupal 12 can follow when your application, hosting and dependencies are ready.
Drupal 12 is scheduled for the week of December 7, 2026, the same week Drupal 10 reaches end of life. Waiting for that release might look like a way to combine the work. In practice, it leaves very little room to discover an incompatible module or a broken integration.
The useful distinction for a business owner is this: leaving Drupal 10 has a deadline. Adopting Drupal 12 at launch is a separate decision.
What the December deadline actually requires
The official release schedule puts Drupal 10 end of life on December 9, with no further Drupal 10 releases after that date. It also ends security support for Drupal 11.3.x during the week of December 7.
That makes “upgrade to Drupal 11.3 or later” an incomplete production recommendation this close to December. Drupal 11.3 satisfies the documented minimum stepping stone to Drupal 12, but it is approaching its own support cutoff. For an upgrade planned today, target the latest secure Drupal 11.4 release, subject to compatibility checks, and include subsequent minor updates in the maintenance plan.
Drupal 12’s next scheduled milestones are a release candidate in the week of November 9 and the stable release in December. Use those as testing checkpoints rather than promises about when your particular site will be ready.
Can you upgrade directly from Drupal 10 to Drupal 12?
No. Drupal’s upgrade process overview explicitly rules out skipping major versions. A Drupal 10 site must reach Drupal 11.3.0 or higher and run the necessary updates before proceeding to Drupal 12.
Those updates affect stored data and configuration, not just package versions. Changing a Composer constraint cannot replace them. My recommendation is to make Drupal 11 a tested production checkpoint, so the team can establish that publishing, forms and integrations work before introducing the next major version.
| Your position today | Next practical move | Release decision |
|---|---|---|
| Still on Drupal 10 | Prioritise a supported Drupal 11 release before December 9. | Keep Drupal 12 outside the critical path. |
| Already on Drupal 11.3 | Move to a supported minor before its December support cutoff. | Avoid treating the minimum upgrade version as a long-term destination. |
| Running Drupal 11.4 | Maintain security updates and test Drupal 12 separately. | Choose the Drupal 12 date around dependency and operational readiness. |
Ask for a blocker list before approving the estimate
A useful assessment should identify what prevents the upgrade, who owns each fix and what evidence will close it. “Most modules are compatible” is not enough to price or schedule the work.
Inventory contributed modules, themes, custom code, patches, Composer dependencies, hosting requirements and external integrations. Separate essential features from things the business can retire. A module handling authentication or orders deserves attention before an unused administrative convenience.
The Drupal 10 to 11 upgrade guide also flags core extensions removed in Drupal 11, including Book, Forum and Tour. Where these are used, decide whether to remove the functionality or adopt a maintained replacement before changing core.
Check the actual releases the team proposes to install. A compatibility patch or prerelease may help testing, but accepting it for production creates a maintenance decision. Record the reason, owner and replacement plan.
Give developers a repeatable rehearsal
Start on a separate branch with a representative database and files, using an environment that matches the intended production platform. The same upgrade guide recommends Upgrade Status to identify compatibility gaps and Drupal Rector to help replace deprecated code.
For an initial dependency investigation, developers can use composer why-not drupal/core '^11'. After preparing the target constraints on the upgrade branch, composer update --dry-run checks dependency resolution without installing the proposed changes. Neither command proves that the application works.
Review generated fixes and changed dependencies, run the database updates on the rehearsal copy, and test the resulting application. Drupal’s Project Update Bot announcement describes improved automated analysis and fixes for Drupal 12. That is useful assistance; custom behaviour still needs review and functional testing.
Plan PHP and hosting changes explicitly
The current PHP requirements list PHP 8.3 through 8.5 for Drupal 11.3 and 11.4, while Drupal 12.0 requires PHP 8.5. Drupal 10 does not support PHP 8.5. A site still on PHP 8.1 or 8.2 therefore needs a staged runtime plan.
Check web and command-line PHP, required extensions, database compatibility, build images and hosting availability. Include Argon2 password-hashing support in the Drupal 12 checks. Make these explicit tasks with the hosting provider so an application upgrade does not stall at deployment.
Agree what “ready to deploy” means
Before booking the production window, name the people who will verify publishing, permissions, forms, search, scheduled jobs and the integrations the business depends on. Test complete journeys, including confirmation emails and downstream records.
Rehearse restoring the database and files alongside the previous code release. Agree how new submissions or orders will be protected during deployment and recovery; reverting code alone may not undo database changes.
For agency teams, make ownership clear across development, hosting and client approval. Keep the Drupal 12 rehearsal aligned with the proven Drupal 11 baseline, then schedule it when compatible releases and testing justify the move.
If you need help turning that into a workable scope, I can coordinate the dependency review, technical decisions and release plan with your team. Talk to Greg about managing your Drupal upgrade.
Related on GrN.dk
- Drupal 10's December 2026 Deadline: Start With the Upgrade Inventory
- MariaDB 10.6 EOL: quiet CMS hosting debt needs a real upgrade plan before July 2026
- PHP 8.2 Is Near End of Life: A Practical Upgrade Plan for CMS Hosts
Need help with this kind of work?
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