SAP ECC End of Maintenance Statistics (2026): Deadlines, Holdouts and Migration Risk

SAP ECC mainstream maintenance ends in December 2027 for most customers, and the research is now clear about who will not make it. This page collects the analyst forecasts, user-group surveys, SAP financials and the July 2026 European Commission maintenance commitments. Together they show how many customers are still on ECC, what they plan to do, and how often S/4HANA programs overrun.

Key takeaways

The maintenance calendar in numbers

The end of ECC maintenance happens in stages, not on a single date. Your release (enhancement package), your contract model and, since July 2026, how you split your landscape all change which date applies to you. For a full walkthrough, see our explainer linked in the sign-off section below.

• December 31, 2025: Mainstream maintenance ended for SAP ECC 6.0 enhancement packages 0 through 5 (CIO.com, June 2025). The end-of-2027 date applies only to EHP 6 to 8 (The Register, September 2024).
• End of 2027: Mainstream maintenance ends for SAP Business Suite 7 core applications, including SAP ERP 6.0. Optional extended maintenance then runs from the start of 2028 to the end of 2030 (SAPinsider, October 13, 2026).
• 2% premium: Extended maintenance costs a 2 percent premium (The Register, February 2026). E3 Magazine describes it more precisely as a surcharge of two percentage points on the existing maintenance base (E3 Magazine, 2025).
• After extended maintenance: Systems move automatically to customer-specific maintenance. That means no new support packages, no legal-change updates and limited technology updates. Customers are also charged for solving problems not yet known to SAP (SAPinsider, October 2026).
• 2031 to end of 2033: The "SAP ERP, private edition, transition option" applies to systems moved to SAP ERP, private edition before the end of 2030. SAP HANA is the only supported database. SAP will release more details closer to availability-to-purchase in 2028, and the 2031–2033 subscription comes at an expanded fee (SAP News Center, February 2025).
• 10 years: This is the commitment period of the SAP maintenance and support commitments made binding by the European Commission, effective July 10, 2026 (SAP Support, July 2026). IgniteSAP reports that the investigation opened in September 2025 and the decision was adopted on July 9, 2026 (IgniteSAP, July 2026).
• 50% or six months: Under the commitments, the reinstatement charge for returning to SAP support is capped. It is limited to either 50% of the fees that would have been due for the off-support period or six months of maintenance payments. Customers can also split a landscape into several "Commercial Installations," each with its own support model (SAP Support, July 2026). IgniteSAP reads the cap as the lower of the two amounts (IgniteSAP, July 2026).

How many ECC customers are still left

No one outside SAP publishes an audited count. The most cited baseline is Gartner's installed base of about 35,000 ECC customers. Other sources measure different populations: survey respondents, user-group members or modeled installed bases. That explains most of the spread below.

• 39% migrated, about 14,000 organizations: This is Gartner's estimate of the 35,000 ECC customers that had moved to S/4HANA by the end of 2024 (CIO.com, June 2025).
• 17,000 holdouts in 2027 and 13,000 in 2030: These are Gartner's projections at the current migration rate (CIO.com, June 2025).
• 40% to 45%: IDC's Mickey North Rizza expects this share of ECC users to remain on the older ERP through 2027 (CIO.com, June 2025).
• Over 60%: In early 2025, Gartner estimated that over 60% of SAP customers remained on ECC 6 on-premises with no decision yet to move. It also projected that 40% of today's legacy ERP customers would still not have migrated by 2030 (The Register, February 2025).

Source: CIO.com reporting Gartner estimates and projections, June 2025

A vendor model from Basis Technologies, which sells SAP DevOps and testing tools, is more optimistic. It starts from the same 35,000-customer base. It estimates that 28% were live at the end of 2023 and projects 57% by the end of 2027 and 80% by the end of 2030.

Source: Basis Technologies (vendor model), 2025

Conflicting numbers, explained. Gartner's 39% (end of 2024) and the Basis model's 28% (end of 2023) cover different years. Survey-based figures are not installed-base counts. SAPinsider's 2025 benchmark of 170 community members found 34% had completed the move. Its 2026 benchmark of 296 members found 55% had deployed some version of S/4HANA, but only 34% had fully switched daily operations to it.

Sources: CIO.com/Gartner, June 2025; SAPinsider, February 2025; SAPinsider, July 2026

Migration plans and timing

User-group surveys show where the 2027 deadline actually falls in customer planning. The short answer: for a large share of customers, the real deadline is 2030.

• 37% by 2027, almost half by 2030, 4% by 2033: These are the S/4HANA timing plans of DSAG members still on ECC. The survey covered 198 senior leaders in Germany, Switzerland and Austria between December 8, 2025 and January 21, 2026 (The Register, February 2026). DSAG says the 2033 group is planning to use the SAP ERP, private edition, transition option (DSAG, February 2026).
• 18% will miss 2027 and 7% have no plans: In SAPinsider's 2025 benchmark (170 members, December 2024 to February 2025), 34% had completed the transition and 41% planned to move before the 2027 deadline. Another 18% will not finish before the end of 2027, and 7% have no plans to deploy S/4HANA at all (SAPinsider, February 2025).
• 57%: In the same SAPinsider research, the impending end of maintenance for SAP ECC and the broader SAP Business Suite was the most significant migration driver, cited by 57%. It was also one of the top external factors (48%) affecting S/4HANA plans over the previous 12 months (SAPinsider, February 2025).
• Almost a quarter undecided: In a survey by DSAG's Financials subgroup, almost a quarter of participating ECC users had not decided on their future architecture (CIO.com, March 2025).
• 56%: ASUG members currently live or in the process of moving to S/4HANA, which ASUG calls an 11% increase over 2024 (ASUG research, 2025). In ASUG's 2024 Pulse survey, 47% were using S/4HANA or starting the implementation process, and 69% expected to have implemented it within two years (ASUG, 2024).

Source: SAPinsider S/4HANA Migration benchmark, 170 members, February 2025

Conflicting signals on "won't move." Brandsit, citing Gartner data from June, reports that 40% of customers still do not want to leave ECC (Brandsit, February 2026). Only 7% of SAPinsider respondents said they have no plans to deploy S/4HANA. Gartner measures the installed base. SAPinsider surveys engaged community members, who are likely further along.

Where customers are going: on-premises, RISE and cloud

The end of ECC maintenance has not produced a rush to public cloud. In German-speaking markets, on-premises S/4HANA has now overtaken ECC as the most-used ERP among DSAG respondents.

Source: IT-Matchmaker reporting the DSAG Investment Report 2026 (198 respondents) vs. 2024, March 2026. Respondents can run several ERPs at once, so totals exceed 100%. SAP ran the 2025 questionnaire, so DSAG compares against 2024.

Investment intent tells the same story. Here is the share of DSAG respondents planning high or medium 2026 investment in each ERP option:

Source: DSAG Investment Report 2026 press release, February 2026

• 39% on-premises vs. 24% RISE: These are the S/4HANA targets of ECC users in the DSAG Financials subgroup survey. Of the same group, 47% still ran on-premises ECC, 42% used on-premises S/4HANA (Classic Edition), 8% Private Edition and 3% Public Edition (CIO.com, March 2025).
• 45%: SAPinsider respondents already on S/4HANA who plan to switch to RISE with SAP, up from 30% the year before (SAPinsider, February 2025).
• 34% brownfield, 18% greenfield, 49% lift-and-shift: These come from an ISG survey of 200 decision-makers. The rest of the respondents chose a hybrid "bluefield" approach, and 49% move old processes to the new environment without modifying them (Brandsit reporting ISG, February 2026).

Source: Brandsit reporting an ISG survey of 200 decision-makers, February 2026

Budget, schedule and quality risk

For sign-off owners, the most useful single study is Horváth's "Business Transformation Unlocked." It surveyed 200 SAP-using companies with at least €200 million in revenue and at least 200 employees. Fieldwork took place in Q1 2025 across the DACH region, Northern and Eastern Europe, and the US.

• 30% longer: The average amount by which transformations exceed their planned duration (Horváth, April 2025).
• 8% on schedule: Only 8% of companies that completed the move did so on schedule. Only 37 of the 200 had finished, and 57% were still mid-transformation (CIO.com, 2025).
• 25% heavily and 40% strongly over budget: Budget overruns among transformed organizations, per Horváth (Horváth, April 2025).
• 65% missed quality targets: 65% of leaders say they missed their initial quality targets, and 60% report planning overruns (Consultancy-me.com reporting Horváth, April 2025).
• 73% say budgets are too tight: 73% of executives say budget and capacity for the transformation are generally too tight (Horváth, May 2025).
• 60% miss deadlines or budgets: In ISG's survey of 200 decision-makers, as many as 60% of migration projects miss deadlines or exceed budgets (Brandsit reporting ISG, February 2026).

Sources: CIO.com/Horváth, 2025; Consultancy-me.com/Horváth, April 2025; Horváth, May 2025

Asked what they would do differently in hindsight, respondents said:

Source: Horváth "Business Transformation Unlocked," 200 companies, May 2025

Cost surprises also show up in ASUG data. Among 208 ASUG members surveyed in 2025, costs matched expectations for only 23% of respondents, down 13% from the prior year's results. Another 24% were not sure, and 4% came in below expectations. Consulting fees were the main source of unexpected costs, up 20% since 2023 (ASUG, December 2025).

Testing, cutover and timeline signals

None of the major surveys asks directly about test coverage or defect leakage. However, several numbers point to testing and cutover as the place where programs stall.

• 55% deployed vs. 34% fully switched: In SAPinsider's ERP Migration and Transformation 2026 benchmark (296 members, December 2025 to March 2026), 55% had deployed a version of S/4HANA, but only 34% had fully switched daily operations to it (SAPinsider, July 2026). The gap between "deployed" and "running the business on it" is where cutover rehearsals, parallel runs and UAT sit.
• 28%: Automated testing tools were listed at 28% among the supporting technologies in SAPinsider's 2025 migration benchmark. That ties them with data cleansing tools (28%) and puts them ahead of process discovery for S/4HANA transformation (26%) (SAPinsider, February 2025).
• 1.5 years: The average S/4HANA transition time reported by ASUG members (ASUG research, 2025). For comparison, Panorama's cross-vendor 2026 ERP Report (170 respondents, January 2025 to January 2026) found a median project timeline of 9 months across all ERP projects (Panorama Consulting, 2026). The populations differ, so the two figures show how much longer S/4HANA moves run than typical ERP projects. They are not a like-for-like benchmark.
• Three to seven years: Gartner has worked with clients anticipating migration projects of three to seven years (CIO.com, June 2025).
• Three-quarters: Three-quarters of Horváth respondents say the selection and availability of project managers and staff do not get enough attention up front. That includes the test leads and business testers a program depends on (Horváth, April 2025).

SAP's revenue mix as maintenance winds down

SAP's own financials show the installed base shifting from maintenance to subscriptions.

Source: SAP Quarterly Statement Q4 2025 and SAP Q4 2025 results presentation, January 2026

• −11%: SAP software support revenue fell from €2,876m in Q4 2024 to €2,557m in Q4 2025 (SAP, January 2026).
• €22.9 billion, +27%: SAP's current cloud backlog at the end of Q2 2026. Cloud ERP Suite revenue grew 25% in the quarter, and first-half 2026 Cloud ERP Suite revenue reached €10,739m, up from €8,673m (SAP Quarterly Statement Q2 2026, July 2026).
• October 21, 2026: The date SAP has scheduled its Q3 2026 results (SAP Investor Relations). We will update this section afterward.

Third-party support and the stay-on-ECC option

• 2040: Rimini Street has pledged to support SAP ECC 6.0 and S/4HANA until 2040 (The Register, June 2025). The company claims annual maintenance savings of up to 90%. This is a vendor claim (CIO.com, June 2025).
• Nine in ten and eight in ten (vendor data): In a Rimini Street survey of 455 organizations, nine in ten SAP customers were concerned about rising and unpredictable subscription costs. Nearly eight in ten expect to adopt a modular ERP approach with multiple vendors (CIO.com, November 2025).
• Landscape splits: Since July 10, 2026, customers can choose a different SAP support model, a different provider or no support for each Commercial Installation (SAP Support, July 2026). This makes mixed ECC/S/4HANA support arrangements contractually simpler. It also means the integration points between those installations need their own regression coverage.

AI and the outlook to 2030

• 43%: DSAG respondents that have already put AI use cases into production (IT-Onlinemagazin reporting DSAG, February 2026).
• Six in ten: Organizations still in the S/4HANA transformation phase, according to Horváth's study of 200 SAP-using companies with at least €200 million in revenue. Horváth links this to slow adoption of SAP's Joule assistant (Horváth, November 2025).
• AI for ECC customers: At SAP Sapphire 2026, SAP announced selected AI scenarios for ECC and S/4HANA on-premises customers under RISE with SAP or GROW with SAP. DSAG called this "only a first step" (DSAG Annual Congress statement via Jenni Kommunikation, October 2026).
• The 2030 picture: Projections for the end of extended maintenance diverge widely. Gartner projects 13,000 customers still on ECC (CIO.com, June 2025). Basis Technologies' vendor model projects 80% migrated (Basis Technologies, 2025). Plan for the conservative number.

What this means for your sign-off

1. Treat 2030 as the deadline you test against, and 2027 as the date your risk profile changes. Almost half of DSAG's ECC users plan to finish by 2030 and will pay for extended maintenance to get there. If that is your path, ECC keeps getting fixes through 2030, and those support packages still need regression cycles while the S/4HANA program runs in parallel. Our explainer on what 2027, 2030 and 2033 really mean maps each date to your obligations.
2. Build the Horváth overrun into the test schedule. Projects run 30% longer than planned on average, and only 8% of completed moves finished on time. Test phases are usually what gets squeezed. Size SIT, UAT and mock cutovers with explicit contingency, using a phase-by-phase structure like our ECC to S/4HANA migration testing plan.
3. Define "done" as running the business, not "deployed." SAPinsider's 2026 data shows 55% have deployed S/4HANA, but only 34% run daily operations on it. Make cutover rehearsal evidence and go/no-go criteria part of the exit gate. The Go/No-Go Readiness Checklist and Mock Cutover Rehearsal Tracker in our template library are built for this.
4. If you are taking the 2033 transition option or RISE, testing is still yours. The transition option requires moving to SAP ERP, private edition on HANA before the end of 2030. That is a database and platform migration with its own regression scope, and it comes before the S/4HANA conversion itself. See RISE with SAP: why testing is still your job.
5. Customer-specific maintenance moves compliance testing onto you. Once a system has no legal-change updates, tax, payroll and statutory reporting changes have to be built and tested in-house. Price that testing effort into any "stay on ECC" business case.
6. Landscape splits create new integration test boundaries. The July 2026 commitments allow different support models per Commercial Installation. Each boundary becomes an interface you need to regression-test when either side changes.

Frequently asked questions

When does SAP ECC mainstream maintenance end?

For SAP ERP 6.0 on enhancement packages 6 to 8, mainstream maintenance ends at the end of 2027, with optional extended maintenance from 2028 through the end of 2030 (SAPinsider, 2026). For EHP 0 to 5, mainstream maintenance already ended on December 31, 2025 (CIO.com, 2025).

How many companies are still running SAP ECC?

Gartner estimates the ECC installed base at about 35,000 customers, of which 39% (about 14,000) had migrated by the end of 2024. It projects about 17,000 will still be on ECC in 2027 (CIO.com reporting Gartner, 2025).

How much does SAP ECC extended maintenance cost?

Extended maintenance from 2028 to 2030 carries a 2 percent premium (The Register, 2026). E3 Magazine describes it as two percentage points on the existing maintenance base (E3 Magazine, 2025).

Can we stay on ECC until 2033?

Only through the SAP ERP, private edition, transition option. Systems must move to SAP ERP, private edition, running on SAP HANA, before the end of 2030. The subscription then covers 2031 to the end of 2033 at an expanded fee (SAP News Center, 2025). In DSAG's 2026 survey, 4% of ECC users were targeting 2033 (The Register, 2026).

How often do S/4HANA migrations run late?

In Horváth's 2025 study of 200 SAP-using companies, projects ran 30% longer than planned on average (Horváth, 2025). Only 8% of companies that had completed the move did so on schedule (CIO.com, 2025).

What does it cost to return to SAP support after letting it lapse?

Under the commitments effective July 10, 2026, the reinstatement charge is limited to 50% of the fees due for the off-support period or six months of maintenance payments. The commitments run for 10 years (SAP Support, 2026).

Sources

1. SAP Maintenance & Support Commitments effective July 10, 2026, SAP Support, July 2026
2. A Bridge for the RISE with SAP Journey (SAP ERP, private edition, transition option), SAP News Center, February 2025
3. Quarterly Statement Q4 2025, SAP SE, January 2026
4. Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2025 Results presentation, SAP SE, January 2026
5. Quarterly Statement Q2 2026, SAP SE, July 2026
6. Investor Relations events calendar, SAP SE, accessed October 2026
7. What SAP Support Covers After 2027, and What Customers Carry, SAPinsider, October 13, 2026
8. SAP S/4HANA Migration 2025: Detailed Findings, SAPinsider, February 2025
9. SAP S/4HANA Migration 2025: Executive Summary, SAPinsider, February 2025
10. Abacus Maps the SAP ECC to S/4HANA Decision (citing ERP Migration and Transformation 2026 benchmark), SAPinsider, July 2026
11. Nearly half of SAP ECC customers may stick with legacy ERP beyond 2027 (Gartner, IDC), CIO.com, June 2025
12. Why SAP may be mulling 2030 end of maintenance for legacy ERP (Gartner), The Register, February 2025
13. Half of German-speaking SAP users set to blow past 2027 ECC support deadline (DSAG), The Register, February 2026
14. DSAG Investment Report 2026 press release (English) and German version, DSAG, February 2026
15. DSAG: Mehr Budget, mehr S/4HANA, IT-Matchmaker News, March 2026
16. DSAG-Investitionsreport 2026: KI wird zur strategischen Bewährungsprobe für SAP, IT-Onlinemagazin, February 2026
17. Nearly 25% of SAP ECC customers unsure about their future (DSAG Financials subgroup), CIO.com, March 2025
18. 2024 Pulse of the SAP Customer Research, ASUG, 2024
19. ASUG Research: SAP S/4HANA Adoption Trends, Insights, and Advice, ASUG, 2025
20. The State of SAP S/4HANA Adoption: Trends, Successes, and Challenges, ASUG, December 2025
21. Study shows: SAP S/4HANA transformations rarely go as planned, Horváth, April 10, 2025
22. Unternehmen unterschätzen Herausforderungen der SAP S/4HANA-Transformation, Horváth, May 2025
23. AI Agent in the Core System: Companies Still Hesitant About SAP Joule, Horváth, November 12, 2025
24. SAP customers struggle with S/4HANA migration (Horváth), CIO.com, 2025
25. 90% of companies kicked off their SAP S/4HANA implementation process (Horváth), Consultancy-me.com, April 2025
26. Gartner warns: 40% of SAP ECC users have no plans to migrate (ISG survey data), Brandsit, February 2026
27. The 2026 ERP Report, Panorama Consulting Group, March 2026
28. The True State of S/4HANA 2025 (vendor model), Basis Technologies, 2025
29. Deadline Extension for ECC 6.0 Until 2033, E3 Magazine, 2025
30. The EC's Decision on SAP's Maintenance Policies, IgniteSAP, July 30, 2026
31. SAP support renewal deadline coverage (EHP 6–8 vs. EHP 5 and earlier), The Register, September 2024
32. SAP ECC 6.0 lives to fight another decade under Rimini Street, The Register, June 2025
33. Rimini Street extends SAP support until 2040, CIO.com, June 2025
34. SAP customers not sold on S/4HANA ROI (Rimini Street survey, vendor data), CIO.com, November 2025
35. DSAG Jahreskongress 2026: Wirtschaftlichkeit und Wahlfreiheit, Jenni Kommunikation, October 2026

Last updated: October 14, 2026. Statistics are refreshed as new research is published.