The Rails maintenance policy is lean by design: only the most recent minor version of the most recent two major versions receives security patches . Everything else is on its own.

That policy creates a faster EOL cadence than most teams expect. Rails 7.0 felt modern — it shipped with Hotwire, import maps, and CSS bundling. It reached end of life on April 1, 2025 .

Here's the current state of the Rails lifecycle.

Rails EOL Schedule

Version End of Life Status

Rails 4.2 Apr 2020 ❌ EOL

Rails 5.2 Jun 2022 ❌ EOL

Rails 6.0 Jun 2023 ❌ EOL

Rails 6.1 Jun 30, 2024 ❌ EOL

Rails 7.0 Apr 1, 2025 ❌ EOL

Rails 7.1 Oct 1, 2026 ⚠️ Security only

Rails 7.2 Aug 1, 2027 ✅ Full support

Rails 8.0 Nov 1, 2027 ✅ Full support

The Compounding Ruby Problem

Rails 6.x applications typically run on Ruby 2.6, 2.7, or 3.0. All three are EOL:

Ruby 2.6 — EOL March 2022

Ruby 2.7 — EOL March 2023

Ruby 3.0 — EOL March 2024

A Rails 6.1 application on Ruby 2.7 has two compounding EOL layers.…