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EF Core releases and planning

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Stable releases

Release Target framework Supported until Links
EF Core 9.0 .NET 8 May 12, 2026 What's new / Breaking changes
EF Core 8.0 .NET 8 November 10, 2026 What's new / Breaking changes
EF Core 7.0 .NET 6 Expired May 14, 2024 What's new / Breaking changes
EF Core 6.0 .NET 6 Expired November 12, 2024 What's new / Breaking changes
EF Core 5.0 .NET Standard 2.1 Expired May 10, 2022 Announcement / Breaking changes
EF Core 3.1 .NET Standard 2.0 Expired December 13, 2022 Announcement
EF Core 3.0 .NET Standard 2.1 Expired March 3, 2020 Announcement / Breaking changes
EF Core 2.2 .NET Standard 2.0 Expired December 23, 2019 Announcement
EF Core 2.1 .NET Standard 2.0 Expired August 21, 2021* Announcement
EF Core 2.0 .NET Standard 2.0 Expired October 1, 2018 Announcement
EF Core 1.1 .NET Standard 1.3 Expired June 27 2019 Announcement
EF Core 1.0 .NET Standard 1.3 Expired June 27 2019 Announcement

See supported platforms for information about the specific platforms supported by each EF Core release.

Entity Framework Core releases and support are aligned with .NET releases and support. See the .NET support policy for information on support expiration and long-term support (LTS) releases.

* EF Core 2.1 will continue to be supported when used with ASP.NET Core 2.1 on .NET Framework only. See ASP.NET Support Policy for details.

Guidance on updating to new releases

  • Supported releases are patched for security and other critical bugs. Always use the latest patch of a given release. For example, for EF Core 9.0, use 9.0.x for the highest 'x' available.
  • Major version updates (for example, from EF Core 8 to EF Core 9) often have breaking changes. Thorough testing is advised when updating across major versions. Use the breaking changes links above for guidance on dealing with breaking changes.
  • Minor version updates do not typically contain breaking changes. However, thorough testing is still advised since new features can introduce regressions.

Release planning and schedules

EF Core releases align with the .NET Core shipping schedule.

Patch releases usually ship monthly, but have a long lead time.

See the release planning process for more information on how we decide what to ship in each release. We typically don't do detailed planning for further out than the next major or minor release.

EF Core 10.0

The next planned stable release is EF Core 10.0, or just EF10, scheduled for November 2025.