What happens to our system after SAP maintenance ends in 2027?

Mainstream maintenance for SAP ERP 6.0 ends at the end of 2027. After that there is chargeable extended maintenance until the end of 2030 with a surcharge on the maintenance fee, followed only by customer-specific maintenance. So your system does not stop running. What ends are regular corrections and legal updates. Because a change of system needs lead time, the decision point lies well before the end date.

How a migration actually runs: migration from SAP to Business Central

The comparison of the two systems: Business Central and SAP in the mid-market

What exactly ends in 2027

Mainstream maintenance for SAP ERP 6.0 runs until the end of 2027. In that phase SAP delivers corrections, security updates and legal adjustments in the usual scope. After that, extended maintenance until the end of 2030 can be purchased, for which a surcharge on the maintenance fee applies. Then customer-specific maintenance remains, which is considerably limited.

Source: SAP: Maintenance Strategy, retrieved 21 September 2026

In practice this means your system keeps running and nothing is switched off. What falls away are the regular legal adjustments, and those are precisely what matters in German accounting. Anyone left without a successor after maintenance ends has to commission such adjustments themselves.

Why the decision point is much earlier

A change of system in a mid-sized company typically takes twelve to twenty-four months from selection to stable operation, longer with several entities. Count back from your target date and the starting point quickly lands in the present.

On top comes an effect many underestimate: when many companies switch at the same deadline, consulting capacity becomes scarce and prices rise. Deciding early gives you the better choice of partners and more room to negotiate.

The third reason is your own preparation. Cleaning master data, clarifying processes, reviewing bespoke solutions: that work arises anyway and can be done calmly or under time pressure. The difference in the result is considerable.

The three routes available

The first route is moving within the SAP world to S/4HANA. It suggests itself when your processes are deeply rooted in SAP, you have bespoke developments that are still needed, and the organisation holds SAP knowledge. It is not an update but a project with its own order of magnitude.

The second route is moving to a different system. For mid-sized companies whose SAP installation has become unwieldy over the years, that can be the more economical decision, particularly when a large share of the functions was never used.

The third route is extended maintenance until 2030 as a deliberate extension. That is legitimate if it buys you time for sound preparation. It is risky if it merely postpones the decision, because 2030 arrives with the same certainty as 2027.

How to prepare the decision

Start with an inventory that answers three questions. First: which functions do you actually use, measured by system usage rather than by memory? In many grown installations the used share is smaller than everyone expects.

Second: which bespoke developments exist, and which of them are still business relevant? Each one is either an effort item for the transfer or a candidate for replacement by the standard.

Third: what is the state of your data? That question determines the effort in each of the three routes, because data has to be touched in all cases. With those three answers you can build a business case that carries the decision.