Is Ubuntu 22.04 end of life? Standard and expanded maintenance dates

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is not end of life yet. Canonical's release cycle page lists standard security maintenance until May 2027 and expanded security maintenance until May 2032. You have roughly seven months of standard coverage left, which is the right time to plan the move to 24.04 or 26.04.

The dates on Canonical's page

The Ubuntu release cycle page lists these dates for 22.04 LTS, released April 2022:

For context, the same page lists 24.04 LTS with standard maintenance to May 2029 and 26.04 LTS, released April 2026, with standard maintenance to May 2031.

Expanded security maintenance is part of a subscription offering with its own terms. Whether it applies to a given machine depends on whether that machine is enrolled. A date on a web page does not tell you your fleet is covered.

Why planning starts early

OS upgrades touch everything above them: language runtimes, native libraries, kernel modules, agents and monitoring tools. Teams that wait until the last quarter find that one dependency blocks the rest. Starting now leaves room for staged rollout.

Use a sequence like this:

1. Count. List hosts, VM images and container bases on 22.04. A container image built from a 22.04 base counts even if the host is newer.
2. Group. Split into pets, such as hand-built servers, and cattle, such as images rebuilt from code. Cattle are cheap to move.
3. Pilot. Move one low-risk service and note every surprise.
4. Schedule. Put dates on the rest, ordered by exposure.
5. Decide on coverage. For anything that will miss the date, decide whether to enroll in expanded maintenance, isolate it, or accept a documented exception.

What to record

• OS name and version, read from the os-release file on the system.
• Coverage type: standard, expanded with enrollment evidence, or none.
• The end date from the vendor page and the date you checked.
• Owner and target date.

Do not record "supported" without a coverage type. The word hides the difference between standard and expanded, and it is the difference an auditor or customer will ask about. End of sale, end of support and end of life helps with wording, and the previous Ubuntu LTS guide shows the same pattern one release back.

Common blockers

Third-party agents that publish packages for specific releases, vendor appliances that pin an OS version, and custom kernel modules cause most delays. Ask each vendor for their supported OS list early, and record the answer.

Try it yourself

Click through it at your own pace, or open it full screen. Look at how changes are surfaced over time, the same idea as a date that approaches.

Where Safeguard fits

Safeguard's asset discovery and SBOM scanning help you find what runs on which base, and compliance and evidence automation keeps the records for exceptions. A free scan is at gold.safeguard.sh/scan.

Quick check

Sources

• Ubuntu release cycle

Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.