Proposed change: Requiring PHP 8.1 or newer for WooCommerce 11.5 and beyond Engineering

The WooCommerce engineering team has been evaluating WooCommerce’s minimum PHP requirement, talking with the community, and tracking general store hosting trends. Our goal is to bump the minimum requirement to PHP 8.1 or newer, starting with the WooCommerce 11.5 release currently targeted for January 2027. This change would end support for PHP 7.4 and 8.0 in future versions of WooCommerce.

We want to hear from store owners, agencies, hosting providers, extension developers, and other WooCommerce contributors as we determine the target release.

Benefits of requiring PHP 8+

PHP 7.4 and PHP 8.0 are no longer supported by the PHP project. PHP 7.4 reached end of life in November 2022, and PHP 8.0 reached end of life in November 2023. Running unsupported PHP versions can leave sites exposed to security issues that no longer receive fixes.

Our internal WooCommerce usage data shows that PHP 7.4 currently accounts for approximately 7% of tracked stores, while PHP 8.0 accounts for approximately 2%. Among stores running a relatively recent WooCommerce version (within the last year), the combined usage is closer to 6% and trending consistently downward. WooCommerce usage tracking is opt-in, so these figures do not represent every store, but a representative sample.

Moving to a newer minimum PHP version would allow WooCommerce and third-party developers to:

Use modern PHP language features (union types, attributes, null-safe, match, named parameters, …).
Adopt newer, more secure dependency packages that no longer support older PHP versions.
Reduce the number of PHP versions that must be tested in continuous integration, speeding up e2e testing, PR reviews, and releases.
Remove compatibility branches and legacy code paths that are increasingly difficult to maintain.

Simply upgrading to PHP 8.0+ means performance improvements for WooCommerce stores by default. Those benefits come from upgrading the PHP runtime itself, and our goal is to see every WooCommerce store continually running the most optimized stack available.

Impact on stores running PHP 7.4 or 8.0

A store running PHP 7.4 or 8.0 would not be automatically upgraded to a WooCommerce version that requires PHP 8.1.

If the proposal is adopted:

WooCommerce 11.5 would declare Requires PHP: 8.1.
By default, WordPress would prevent the update from being offered to stores that do not meet that requirement.
The store would continue running its existing WooCommerce version and receive any dot releases to that particular branch.
The store would need to upgrade PHP before updating to WooCommerce 11.5 or a later compatible release.

This follows the same general approach used for previous WooCommerce PHP requirement changes. For example, WooCommerce 8.2 raised the minimum requirement to PHP 7.4 with advance communication and migration guidance. See New Requirement for WooCommerce 8.2: PHP 7.4+.

The change would not update PHP on a store’s behalf or automatically deactivate an existing WooCommerce installation. Stores that remain on an older PHP version would remain on the latest WooCommerce release compatible with that environment, subject to WooCommerce’s existing support policy.

WordPress and WooCommerce PHP requirements

WordPress currently runs on PHP 7.4 or newer and recommends PHP 8.3 or newer for a modern hosting environment. See the WordPress requirements.

WooCommerce has previously maintained a higher PHP requirement than WordPress. WooCommerce is a complex ecommerce application with its own dependencies, performance requirements, and compatibility considerations, so its minimum PHP version does not need to match WordPress’s minimum version.

Guidance for extension developers and agencies

Developers extending Woo should already be testing their code against newer PHP versions, but additional testing may be helpful.

Extensions that target WooCommerce 11.5 or later could use PHP features and dependencies available in the new supported range. Extensions that continue supporting older WooCommerce versions may need to maintain compatibility layers or separate code paths.

Raising WooCommerce’s minimum PHP version does not guarantee that every extension, theme, or custom snippet will work after a store upgrades PHP. Testing on a staging site remains important.

Feedback on the proposed PHP requirement

Please let us know:

What would prevent your store or client sites from moving beyond PHP 7.4 or 8.0?
Are there extensions, themes, or custom integrations that still require these PHP versions?
Would targeting WooCommerce 11.5 (January 2027) provide enough time to prepare?
Do hosting providers have additional data about PHP version usage across WooCommerce stores?
Are there compatibility or deployment concerns we have not covered?
What migration guidance would make this change easier for your team or customers?

When reporting a compatibility concern, please include the PHP version, WooCommerce version, affected extension or integration, and any relevant error messages or reproduction steps.

Decision and release timeline

We will review the feedback and usage data before confirming the target release and minimum PHP version.

As the change proceeds, we plan to provide advance notice, communicate the final release target, and give developers time to test against the new requirement before WooCommerce 11.5 is released.

Please share your feedback in the comments below.

27 responses to “Proposed change: Requiring PHP 8.1 or newer for WooCommerce 11.5 and beyond”

Debra Sawyers

September 8, 2026

I’m definitely for this. PHP 8.0 end of live was nearly 6 years ago. At some point, if you’re still using PHP 8.0 or lower because of a theme or plugin that’s not compatible with PHP 8.2+, your site is at risk. Site owners still on old versions of PHP should start to expect more and more plugins will not be backwards compatible.

Abdalsalaam Halawa

September 8, 2026

Yes please!

Clifton Griffin

September 8, 2026

Do it, just make sure there’s a non-scary notice for existing stores that they need to upgrade so they can get the latest update. Most people probably don’t realize that this is a 5 minute task in their hosting CP.

Ian

September 8, 2026

Great.

All for it, push the change. Hanging onto backwards compatibility allows sites to be on older versions for no good reason.

Mateusz

September 8, 2026

Oh yes! I think 8.1 is old enough. My websites are running at least 8.3.

Glenn Martin

September 8, 2026

Yes, I’m all for it.

Within three months (December 31, 2026), security support will end for PHP 8.2. So, I’d favor making 8.3 the minimum by that time.

Brian

September 8, 2026

Thanks for pushing this Brian! All for this change – good to give users enough time to prepare as well. Please make sure to inform users as well in the WordPress Dashboard so its also noticeable.

BUT.. When Woo 11.5 arrives we’re already in January 2027 and then PHP 8.6 has already been released. PHP 8.1 has been EOL since 31 December 2025, so 11.5 would still have a minimum required PHP Version thats unsupported. PHP 8.2 isn’t much better — security support ends 31 December 2026, a month before release.

Good to get started but probably another raise would be smart – soon.

1. Brian Coords
  
  September 8, 2026
  
  All thanks goes to the Beau and the engineering team who did the research and pushed hard for this.
  
  There was an internal discussion about why we landed on PHP 8.1, and I’ll see if I can get a proper explanation.
  
2. konamiman
  
  September 9, 2026
  
  We take in account usage figures when bumping the required PHP version for WooCommerce, and for PHP 8.1 this is currently 11%. Once 7.4 and 8.0 are gone and we see that 8.1 gets closer to 5% we’ll for sure consider a bump to 8.2, that’s the strategy we followed for past bumps. We still officially recommend at least PHP 8.3.
  
Ville-Petteri Vatola

September 8, 2026

All managed sites we run are on php 8.4 or 8.5. i think the best practise is to follow the php timelines for support times and end support for versions at end of life.

Gregory K.

September 8, 2026

Yes, please.

Ralf Wiechers

September 9, 2026

All for the move to active PHP Versions.
WooCommerce has a L-1 policy for WordPress-Versions so we can also limit the policy for PHP versions. I would link it to the active PHP version.

Nicolas

September 9, 2026

Hi Brian!
I’m happy to read this article!
I fully support this development, which also echoes the article on ENUMs. I manage a fleet of over 20 WooCommerce sites, and they all use PHP 8.5—even the most unconventional ones.

Lance

September 9, 2026

I would say keep PHP 7.4+ support for following reasons:

1) WordPress still supports a minimum of PHP 7.4 (https://wordpress.org/about/requirements/).

2) 17.43% of WordPress installs use PHP 7.4, which is the 3rd highest version of PHP running WordPress (https://wordpress.org/about/stats/).

3) PHP 7.4 still receives backported security fixes in several LTSC installs. For example, Ubuntu ESM (with Legacy Support) will receive backported security fixes for PHP 7.4 until April 2032.

My recommendation would be to not drop PHP 7.4 support until WordPress does. WordPress usually drops support when the usage goes under 5%.

1. konamiman
  
  September 9, 2026
  
  The usage figure for WooCommerce itself (collected from sites that opted-in to send this information) is currently 9% (PHP 7.4 and 8.0 combined), declining monthly and expected to be around 5% by the time WooCommerce 11.5 is released; and for sites that upgraded their WooCommerce install within the last year this number is already close to 6%. Also WooCommerce has historically been ahead of the requirement for WordPress itself.
  
  1. Lance
    
    September 9, 2026
    
    As this blog post says, “WooCommerce usage tracking is opt-in, so these figures do not represent every store, but a representative sample”. Whereas WordPress tracking of PHP version usage is built from non-identifying telemetry sent automatically when your site checks in for updates, meaning it is not a manual opt-in feature. I find the fact 17.43% of WordPress installs use PHP 7.4 as reported by WordPress a more solid parameter to go by when judging possible percentages of usage rates. Dropping PHP 7.4 which still gets security backports in many distributions, would eliminate the possibility of WooCommerce 11.5+ to be installed on 17.43% of WordPress websites. That is not insignificant in my humble opinion.
    
James

September 9, 2026

It’s a yes from me! I do fully appreciate that some stores may not be running above PHP 8.0, so I wouldn’t do this as a ‘hard’ update. If it’s possible to at least provide sufficient notice to stores running an outdated version of PHP, that would be great.

The reality is, older versions of PHP no longer have security updates and are simply not supported, so for security it makes the most sense to mandate a version of PHP that still does receive security updates.

For my own plugins, I have started mandating PHP 8.3, so I’d be all for increasing the minimum PHP requirements here.

D

September 9, 2026

Keep PHP 7.4 support.

I maintain a couple of sites on PHP 7.4. Last time I ran an audit, a few paid (WooCommerce) extensions hadn’t added support for PHP 8.1+ yet.

At a time when traffic is down and sales are low, the last thing clients want is to spend time dealing with a PHP upgrade and testing whether everything still works afterward.

Also, I don’t think the usage data represents all of WooCommerce, as it only includes those who opted in.

WordPress stats show 17.43% are still on PHP 7.4. If WP supports it, WooCommerce should too, as long as WP does.

If you must force the upgrade, January is too soon, especially with BFCM coming up. The window should be extended to give stores enough time to prepare.

Nicolas

September 9, 2026

I don’t work for Automattic or WooCommerce, and I understand the concerns about dropping PHP 7.4 support, especially considering the usage statistics WooCommerce has across its ecosystem.

But at some point, we also need to align the ecosystem with current technologies and requirements.

PHP 7.4 was released in 2019 and reached upstream EOL in 2022. Running an online store already requires continuous maintenance, updates and monitoring. So, in my opinion, still relying on a PHP version from that generation should at least raise the question of modernising the stack.

But there is another important point here: nobody is being forced to upgrade WooCommerce.

If you have technical or business reasons to stay on PHP 7.4, you can also stay on the WooCommerce version that supports it. Open source gives us that freedom.

What seems more difficult to justify is expecting every future version of WooCommerce to maintain compatibility with an increasingly old runtime. Backwards compatibility has a real cost in terms of code, dependencies, testing and access to modern PHP features.

It’s also interesting to compare this with SaaS platforms such as Shopify, where merchants don’t get to choose which server runtime the platform should continue supporting. With WooCommerce, we have much more control over our stack — including the choice not to upgrade.

Modern PHP, JavaScript, CSS and HTML give developers increasingly better tools to write cleaner, safer and more maintainable code. Allowing WooCommerce to progressively raise its minimum requirements seems to me to be part of that evolution.

And just to be clear, I’m not trying to start a PHP version war or tell anyone how they should manage their stores. Quite the opposite: I find the discussion in the comments here genuinely interesting, which is why I wanted to add another perspective.

There are valid constraints on both sides. My point is simply that keeping an older stack should remain a choice — not necessarily a compatibility requirement imposed on every future version of WooCommerce.

Lady Critique

September 9, 2026

I’m not very knowledgeable about technology, but my ISP has explained that upgrading the PHP version will enhance my site’s speed, reliability, and other aspects. However, they also charge extra for the higher PHP version. Running a WooCommerce store has been a long-time goal of mine, and I started it quite a while ago. Back in 2001, I used Microsoft FrontPage and gradually transitioned to WooCommerce. Maintaining my website has become quite costly and challenging. At the moment, I’m uncertain if I can afford an upgrade, so I agree with Nicolas’s post that it should be optional. Ultimately, the store owner needs to decide whether an upgrade is necessary.

Vladyslav

September 10, 2026

I agree with that, too. I think people who keep their WordPress sites up to date have been using PHP 8.3 and higher for quite some time now. And with all the control panels and hosting providers available today, switching to a newer version isn’t that difficult. As for those who don’t keep up with updates and don’t update WooCommerce, I don’t think it will be a major issue. I’m always in favor of updating and using new technologies, updates, and security patches that are currently available. We are also already installing PHP 8.5 for all our customers, with a minimum of PHP 8.4

guy stevens

September 10, 2026

please support 7.4 as long as wordpress does at the minimum please.
alot of people still use it.

Erin

September 11, 2026

I’d encourage WooCommerce to make PHP 8.4 the minimum instead of 8.1.

If WooCommerce 11.5 is targeting January 2027, PHP 8.1 will already have been EOL for more than a year by the time it ships. PHP 8.2 will have just reached the end of security support as well. It feels odd to introduce a new minimum PHP version that is already unsupported upstream on release day.

PHP 8.4 seems like a much better starting point. It will continue receiving security updates through the end of 2028, so WooCommerce would have a lot more runway before having to revisit this again.

I think there’s also value in WooCommerce helping push the ecosystem forward. WooCommerce is big enough that decisions like this affect hosting companies, extension developers, agencies, and plugin authors. Supporting old PHP versions doesn’t come for free. It means more compatibility code, more versions to test, older dependencies, and less ability to take advantage of newer PHP features.

For stores that can’t upgrade yet because of an old extension or custom code, they can stay on the last WooCommerce version that supports their PHP version while they get things updated. I think that’s a better tradeoff than continuing to hold back future WooCommerce releases for older environments indefinitely.

Obviously adoption numbers matter, but I also don’t think the minimum should be based entirely around the oldest installations that are still out there. At some point a project the size of WooCommerce has to help move the ecosystem forward.

Personally, I’d like to see PHP 8.4 become the minimum for WooCommerce 11.5+, with plenty of advance notice and dashboard warnings before the change happens.

That would feel like a genuinely forward-looking change rather than moving the minimum from one already-old PHP version to another.

1. Vladyslav
  
  September 14, 2026
  
  I completely agree
  For example, Apple requires developers to update their apps and designs because it’s better for the entire ecosystem. WooCommerce should tell us that PHP 8.3 is no longer supported, or that support is ending soon, so we should all switch to 8.4 or 8.5. If that option doesn’t work for you, please stay on the previous version. I would prioritize development speed, security, and optimization over support for older versions of PHP.
  
  Add some kind of check before updating so that WooCommerce warns you that you need to update PHP if you want to update the plugin.
  
  1. Nadir Seghir
    
    September 14, 2026
    
    Add some kind of check before updating so that WooCommerce warns you that you need to update PHP if you want to update the plugin.
    
    WordPress already handles that for you and will prevent you from updating a plugin if you can’t meet the requirements (WP version and PHP version).
    
2. konamiman
  
  September 15, 2026
  
  We definitely can’t do that. Our data shows that only about 20% of stores are currently in PHP 8.4 or 8.5.
  
Ken Richman

September 14, 2026

Yes go to 8.1. Users never want to upgrade; they can either upgrade early and benefit from better security, or late, and not – but they must at some point. If they are not upgrading a whole site because of one poorly supported plugin, well AI can probably code around it.