Drupal 12 is scheduled for the week of 7 December 2026, and Drupal 10 reaches end of life on 9 December 2026. Both dates sit on the same page of the Drupal core release schedule , two lines apart, and most people running a Drupal 10 site have noticed neither. The first alpha of the new major was tagged on 2 September 2026, so the shape of the release is now a matter of record rather than speculation.

That collision is the whole story. A major version arriving is not usually urgent for a site owner, because you can sit on the previous major for a year or two while the ecosystem catches up. This time the previous major stops receiving security advisories in the same week the new one ships, which converts a technical event into a deadline with a compliance edge on it.

What follows is the calendar as drupal.org publishes it, what actually changes in the code, what the new platform floors force on your hosting, the three realistic upgrade paths with cost bands, and a plan working backwards from December.…