MC1056260 - Support for Office 2016, Office 2019, and additional apps will end on October 14, 2025

Service

Microsoft 365 suite

Published

Apr 15, 2025

Tag

User impact
Admin impact
Retirement

More information

As previously communicated, support for Office 2016 and Office 2019 will end on October 14, 2025. After that date, no further updates, security fixes, or technical support will be available for these versions of Office. While the applications may continue to function, using unsupported software could lead to potential security risks, compliance risks, system incompatibilities, and other issues.

Support for Visio 2016 and 2019, Microsoft Project 2016 and 2019, and several other products will also end on October 14, 2025. Organizations using these products should upgrade as soon as possible to maintain security, compliance, and performance.

When this will happen:

Support for Office 2016, Office 2019, and additional apps will end on October 14, 2025.

How this will affect your organization:

After end of support, Office 2016 and Office 2019 suites, standalones, and servers will no longer receive security updates or other fixes, and no technical assistance will be available for devices still running them. Continuing to run unsupported software may expose your organization to security vulnerabilities and compliance risks, and may affect the reliability and performance of services. 

What you need to do to prepare:

To mitigate these risks while maintaining access to desktop Office apps, we recommend upgrading devices to a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 suite that includes Microsoft 365 Apps (for enterprise or for business). Microsoft 365 Apps provides always-up-to-date versions of familiar apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for desktop, mobile, and web with continuous support under the Modern Lifecycle Policy, and is eligible for use with the Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on.

For scenarios that require a fully disconnected solution, we recommend upgrading to Office LTSC 2024. Office LTSC 2024 includes a subset of the value in Microsoft 365 Apps and will be supported until October 2029 under the Fixed Lifecycle Policy

Take steps to prepare for this transition with the following resources: 

  • Read the upgrade guidance for an overview of how to move from Office 2016 or Office 2019 to Microsoft 365 Apps. 
  • Consider engaging Microsoft FastTrack, a Microsoft support service, for moving to Microsoft 365. 

Plan ahead to avoid potential disruptions and keep your organization’s software environment secure and up to date.