Microsoft has set the end of Dynamics GP. Product support ends on December 31, 2029 and security updates end on April 30, 2031. New customers have not been able to buy GP since April 2026. GP keeps running after those dates, but every year on it costs more and carries more risk, and a well-run migration takes six to eighteen months. This guide covers the dates, what ends on each, what staying costs, and how to plan the move.
The dates
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| April 1, 2025 | No new perpetual licenses sold to new customers |
| April 1, 2026 | No new subscription licenses sold to new customers |
| December 31, 2029 | Product support ends: enhancements, tax and regulatory updates, service packs and technical support stop |
| April 30, 2031 | Security updates end |
Microsoft announced these dates on September 25, 2024, with product support originally ending September 30, 2029. In January 2025 it moved that date to December 31, 2029 so that customers get through the 2029 tax year-end. Companies on GP 2018 R2 or earlier are under the older Fixed Lifecycle Policy, and their dates can be earlier.
What ends on December 31, 2029
- Year-end and payroll tax table updates. Payroll users feel this first: the January 2030 tax tables will not come.
- Regulatory updates, including 1099 and W-2 form changes.
- Service packs and hotfixes.
- Technical support from Microsoft. Issues can no longer be escalated to Microsoft engineering.
What ends on April 30, 2031
Security patches. From May 2031, GP is an unpatched financial system holding payroll, vendor banking and customer data. Cyber insurers and auditors treat unsupported core systems as a finding.
What staying costs
The direct cost is maintenance that buys less each year. The indirect costs grow faster:
- Third-party support replaces Microsoft support, at a premium, and with no access to fixes.
- Each Windows Server and SQL Server upgrade needs testing against a product that is no longer being updated.
- Hosting partners are already retiring GP environments, so hosted customers face a forced move on someone else’s timetable.
- Integrations, reporting add-ons and payroll connectors stop being maintained for GP as their vendors follow Microsoft.
- A migration started in 2029 competes for partner capacity with every other GP customer and runs on a deadline. Rushed projects cost more and go live rougher.
Your options
- Stay on GP as long as possible. Workable for a company with no payroll in GP, few integrations and a plan to isolate the server. It means manual tax tables after 2029 and accepting an unpatched system after April 2031.
- Move to Business Central. Microsoft’s successor product. Moving to it is a full implementation with a different interface and workflow, with the same data migration and chart-of-accounts restructuring as any other move. Leaving Dynamics GP: Business Central or Acumatica? compares the two.
- Move to Acumatica. A cloud ERP with unlimited users, built-in financial reporting and native payroll, fixed assets and multi-entity. How a GP to Acumatica migration works.
Options two and three are the same size of project. The choice is about what the team gets on the other side.
How long a migration takes
A single-entity company with few customizations typically goes live in about six months. Multi-entity organizations, heavy custom code or regulatory constraints take 12 to 18 months. Working back from December 2029, a complex environment should be in discovery by early 2028, and any company running payroll in GP should plan to be live before the 2029 year-end.
The migration checklist
Discovery and planning
- Document every GP workflow by department, including the workarounds.
- Inventory every integration and add-on: what it connects, how often, who owns it.
- Name the internal project manager and the subject matter experts, and reserve their time.
System design
- Decide the new chart of accounts structure.
- Decide which integrations stay, which are replaced by native functions, and which are retired.
- Agree the reporting the finance team needs on day one.
Configuration and data
- Clean customer, vendor and item master data before it moves.
- Migrate open AR and AP, inventory and beginning balances; archive older history.
- Validate migrated data against GP balances.
Testing and training
- Test month-end close, payroll and the top ten daily transactions with real scenarios.
- Train each team on its own screens, not the whole system.
Go-live and hypercare
- Pick a go-live date at a period boundary.
- Plan one to two weeks of intensive consultant support after the switch.
Download the GP migration timeline and checklist (PDF) for the full roadmap with phases and estimated timelines.
Where to start
The first step is a conversation about the current environment: version, entities, integrations, payroll, and where the team’s time is going. From that comes a realistic timeline against the 2029 date. Start with the GP migration page or contact i-Tech.
