Java 26

Status	End of Life
Release Date	2026-03-17
EOL Date	2026-09-15
Latest Version	26.0.2.1
Umbrella JSR	JSR 401
Class File Version	70.0
Unicode Version	17.0.0
API Changes	Compare to 25 - 24 - 23 - 22 - 21 - 20 - 19 - 18 - 17 - 16 - 15 - 14 - 13 - 12 - 11 - 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 1.4 - 1.3 - 1.2 - 1.1 - 1.0
Documentation	JavaDoc, Language Spec, VM Spec, Tools, Release Notes
SCM	git
OpenJDK Updates	2026-08-19 → 26.0.2.1 2026-07-21 → 26.0.2 2026-04-21 → 26.0.1 2026-03-17 → 26

Data Source

New Features

Here are all new features in Java 26 by category. There is also of list of all features of all Java releases.

JVM

Ahead-of-Time Object Caching with Any GC (JEP 516)
G1 GC: Improve Throughput by Reducing Synchronization (JEP 522)

Language

Primitive Types in Patterns, instanceof, and switch 4. Preview (JEP 530)

API

Prepare to Make Final Mean Final (JEP 500)
Remove the Applet API (JEP 504)
HTTP/3 for the HTTP Client API (JEP 517)
PEM Encodings of Cryptographic Objects 2. Preview (JEP 524)
Structured Concurrency 6. Preview (JEP 525)
Lazy Constants 2. Preview (JEP 526)
Vector API 10. Incubator (JEP 529)

Should I Upgrade?

Java 26 is end-of-life since 2026-09-15. Unless you have a support contract for this version and a compelling reason to stay on the old version you should definitely upgrade to a newer version with active support.

There is no newer long term support LTS version than the version you're currently using. But you can upgrade to the latest regular release Java 27 which is currently maintained.

Downloads

Vendor	Product	License	Platform Downloads
Adoptium	Eclipse Temurin	GPLv2+CE	aix-ppc64 alpine-arm64 alpine-x64 linux-arm64 linux-ppc64le linux-riscv64 linux-s390x linux-x64 macos-arm64 macos-x64 windows-x64
Amazon	Corretto 26	GPLv2+CE	alpine-arm64 alpine-x64 linux-arm64 linux-x64 macos-arm64 macos-x64 windows-x64
Azul Systems	Zulu Builds of OpenJDK 26	GPLv2+CE	alpine-arm64 alpine-x64 linux-arm64 linux-x64 macos-arm64 macos-x64 windows-x64
BellSoft	Liberica	GPLv2+CE	alpine-arm64 alpine-x64 linux-arm32 linux-arm64 linux-ppc64le linux-riscv64 linux-x64 macos-arm64 macos-x64 windows-arm64 windows-x64
IBM	Semeru Runtime Open Edition, Version 26	GPLv2+CE	aix-ppc64 linux-arm64 linux-ppc64le linux-s390x linux-x64 macos-arm64 macos-x64 windows-x64
Oracle	Oracle JDK 26	Oracle No-Fee	linux-arm64 linux-x64 macos-arm64 macos-x64 windows-x64
SAP	SapMachine 26	GPLv2+CE	aix-ppc64 alpine-x64 linux-arm64 linux-ppc64le linux-x64 macos-arm64 windows-x64

Data Source

Sandbox

Instantly compile and run Java 26 snippets without a local Java installation.

import module java.base; void main() { var v = ClassFileFormatVersion.latest(); IO.println("Hello Java bytecode version %s!".formatted(v.major())); }