Python End of Life - Dates and Lifecycle

First released in 1991, Python has grown from a scripting language into one of the most deployed languages in production infrastructure worldwide, running everything from web backends and data pipelines to machine learning systems and automation scripts. That scale of deployment means Python's end of life schedule directly affects a huge number of production systems, and it's easy for a version to slip past its support window unnoticed since the code keeps running exactly as before.

Python Lifecycle Explained

The Python Software Foundation gives each release a five year lifecycle, defined in PEP 602. For versions 3.9 through 3.12, that's roughly 18 months of full bugfix support followed by about three and a half years of security only support. Starting with Python 3.13, the full bugfix phase was extended to two years, followed by three years of security only support, keeping the total at five years. Once a version reaches the end of that five year window, the Python core team stops releasing any further updates for it, security fixes included, for good.

A new feature version ships roughly every twelve months, so at any given time there are typically four or five versions somewhere in their support window, spanning full support, security only support, and versions that have already gone end of life. Python 2.7 is the clearest historical example: it stayed supported for over a decade before finally reaching end of life on January 1, 2020, and versions like 3.8 have since followed the newer, shorter five year cycle.