SAP ECC after 2027: your options and what to do now

The date. SAP's mainstream maintenance for SAP ECC 6.0 (enhancement packages 6 to 8) ends on 31 December 2027. SAP offers optional extended maintenance to the end of 2030 at an additional fee, and customer-specific maintenance after that. Check your own contract for the exact terms that apply to you.

Three paths

1. Move to S/4HANA by 2027. The cleanest position, but large migrations commonly take two to four years, and the best SAP people are pulled onto the project while ECC still needs daily care.

2. Extend and move later. Extended maintenance buys time to 2030 at a higher fee. Most of the run cost isn't the licence, though. It's the application support that keeps interfaces, jobs and users working every day.

3. Third-party support. Independent providers support ECC beyond SAP's dates. It can cut cost, but check how changes, security notes and the eventual migration will be handled.

What support teams can do in the next 90 days

Measure your ticket mix. Export a year of closed tickets and group them by type. In most ECC landscapes, a handful of repeatable types (stuck IDocs, failed batch jobs, locks, user access, missing outputs) make up a large share of volume.

Separate the repeatable from the judgement calls. Repeatable types with reversible fixes are where automation is safest. Anything that moves money or changes authorizations should stay with a person.

Test before you change anything. Whoever you consider, human or AI, ask them to work blind through your closed tickets and have an architect you trust grade the result. A vendor that won't be tested on your own history is asking you to buy a promise.

Plan support through the cutover. The riskiest months are around go-live, when both systems run and the team is stretched. Agree now who keeps ECC stable during that window.

This guide is general information, not advice on your SAP contract. Confirm dates and terms with SAP or your licensing partner.