Grab your calendar – or a biro, your hand and a stedfast commitment to not wash for the next six months — as here are the key dates in the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release schedule.
Unless you’ve been lounging away at a tech-free retreat, you’ll know that Canonical’s engineers and community developers have started work on Ubuntu 26.04, codename ‘Resolute Raccoon’, which serves as the next Long-Term Support (LTS) release.
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS receives 5 years of ongoing updates (up until 2031), with a further 5 years of Expanded Security Maintenance (ESM) updates provided through Ubuntu Pro (free for home users, paid for enterprise/businesses).
The Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release date is set for April 23, 2026.
Trivia: this is the most common Ubuntu release date as Ubuntu 9.04, 15.04 and 20.04 LTS were also released on the 23rd of April in their respective years.
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| February 19, 2026 | Feature Freeze |
| March 12, 2026 | User Interface Freeze |
| March 19, 2026 | Kernel Feature Freeze |
| March 23, 2026 | Beta Freeze |
| March 26, 2026 | Ubuntu 26.04 Beta Release |
| April 9, 2026 | Kernel Freeze |
| April 16, 2026 | Final Freeze, Release Candidate |
| April 23, 2026 | Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Final Release |
| August 6, 2026 | Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS Release (upgrades from 24.04 LTS enabled) |
Ubuntu 26.04 monthly snapshots will return this cycle. There’s no fixed ‘dates’ for these, but they aim to appear on Ubuntu’s release server towards the end of each month. Monthly snapshots start in November and continue until March, when the beta arrives.
Ubuntu 26.04 features TBD
It’s too early (at the time of writing) to know what new features Ubuntu 26.04 LTS will include as development is still in the early stages.
But there are some givens: GNOME 50, the latest Linux kernel at the time of release, updated graphics drivers. Further Rust-ification of core components is likely, along with improved TPM-backed encryption, and the Snap prompting client losing its ‘experimental’ status.
Might we potentially get a means install Ubuntu 26.04 with amd64v3 packages by default? The default ISO will continue to ship with regular ol’ amd64 v1 packages as a baseline, but a separate installer or dynamic tool may make it easier for those with newer CPUs to benefit.
Will you be trying it?
Anyway; if you plan on testing Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, bookmark this schedule so you know what’s coming and when – or just jot down the final release date if you’d rather wait for a stable stability. Not that you need to upgrade: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS support ends in 2028 (standard)
You don’t have to wait for any release milestone, of course: you can download Ubuntu 26.04 daily builds at at time from the Ubuntu image server.