Microsoft will end support for Office 2016 and Office 2019 apps and servers on October 14, 2025. Anyone who continues to work with these versions of Office after this date risks security breaches, compliance issues and, as Microsoft states in a blog post, even reduced productivity.
However, the latter is presumably because these old Office packages do not enjoy support for all sorts of powerful new AI features. The company’s blog post lists which versions of the associated programs and tools are affected. These include Excel, Word, Outlook, and other well-known Office applications, as well as the associated server products. In addition, Microsoft plans to discontinue Publisher altogether. The app will disappear from all 365 subscriptions by October 2026.
Switching to 365 subscription
Microsoft urges organizations still relying on these tools to consider switching to Microsoft 365 E3 cloud subscriptions. For those who don’t want to, the company offers the Office Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) as a solution, although it is worth noting that the EOS date for Office LTSC 2021 is already on October 13, 2026.
So that’s barely one more year of support than with the 2016 and 2019 versions of Office. However, Microsoft did announce the release of a standalone version of Office later this year.
Also read: Microsoft unbundles Teams from Office 365 and Microsoft 365 globally