Windows 10 LTSC 2021 support ends Jan. 12, with ESU costs rising after

Windows 10 LTSC 2021 support is scheduled to end on Jan. 12, 2027, when Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 receives its final included security update. The deadline, about five months away as of August 2026, puts organizations with long-lived endpoint deployments in a choice between validating a replacement or funding paid Extended Security Updates.

Reporting by The Register and Neowin, citing Microsoft’s lifecycle guidance, identifies the date specifically with Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021. It should not be read as a deadline for every Windows 10 edition. Mainstream Windows 10 support ended in October 2025, while this Long-Term Servicing Channel release retained a later lifecycle intended for installations that prioritize stable configurations over regular feature releases.

When does Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 reach end of support?

The final included security update is due Jan. 12, 2027, according to the two reports. After that, Microsoft’s paid Extended Security Updates, or ESU, program is the available bridge for organizations that cannot retire or move affected machines on that schedule.

Microsoft’s ESU documentation says the commercial program delivers critical and important security updates after support ends. It does not include feature releases, customer-requested non-security fixes, design changes or general operating-system support. Help for ESU activation, installation and ESU-related regressions also requires an active support plan.

That makes ESU a time-limited risk-management measure, rather than an operational substitute for a supported desktop platform. It may be useful where application certification, specialist hardware or deployment sequencing delay a migration, but it does not resolve those dependencies.

What will Windows 10 ESU cost?

Microsoft lists commercial Windows 10 ESU at $61 per device for the first year, with the price doubling in each following year and coverage capped at three years. The Register and Neowin report that these terms apply to Enterprise LTSC 2021 after its January 2027 deadline, with coverage running through Jan. 8, 2030.

• Year one: $61 per device
• Year two: $122 per device
• Year three: $244 per device
• Three-year list-price total: $427 per device

The $427 figure is a calculation from the published annual prices. Licenses are cumulative, Microsoft says: a customer starting in year two must also purchase year one, rather than buying only the remaining period. Microsoft’s documentation says commercial ESU is bought in whole annual terms, not partial periods.

The Register and Neowin report that sales for the LTSC offer begin Sept. 1, 2026. They also report a roughly 25% first-year discount, to about $45 per device, for organizations using Intune or Windows Autopatch. The reports say other customers can buy through Volume Licensing or a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider.

Which LTSC systems are affected?

The date and reported ESU offer concern Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021. Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 is on a separate lifecycle and remains supported until Jan. 13, 2032, according to the reports; it is not part of this ESU offer.

Consumer Windows 10 ESU terms are also separate from enterprise LTSC licensing. For IT teams, the immediate work is inventorying Enterprise LTSC 2021 endpoints, confirming application and hardware constraints, and placing the resulting migration or ESU spend inside the broader enterprise security program. Microsoft’s public ESU documentation supports the general price and feature limits, but does not explicitly name Enterprise LTSC 2021 in the supplied material; the edition-specific deadline and eligibility are reported by The Register and Neowin.

This story draws on original reporting from The Register.