Microsoft Confirms It: Project Online Essentials Reaches End of Life October 1, 2026

On September 2, 2026, Microsoft posted Message Center announcement MC1466302, confirming a date that had been circling for a while: Project Online Essentials reaches end of life on October 1, 2026.

If your organization has any users still assigned that license, this is worth your attention this week. Not because it changes your plans, but because it makes the timeline official.

What Microsoft actually said

A few key facts from the announcement, straight from Microsoft:

  • Project Online Essentials has not been available for new purchase since October 1, 2025.
  • On October 1, 2026, it reaches end of life entirely.
  • Essentials currently provides licensing rights for Project Online and Project Server through Client Access Licenses (CALs).
  • After October 1, 2026, users assigned Project Online Essentials will no longer have access through that license, full stop.
  • Microsoft’s recommended replacements are Project and Planner Plan 1 or Project and Planner Plan 3, both of which cover the applicable Project scenarios and add Planner Premium capabilities that Essentials never included.

Who this affects

This one is narrower than it sounds, but it still catches a lot of organizations by surprise. It applies to you if you have users currently assigned Project Online Essentials licenses, anyone using Project Server whose access rights run through those CALs, and anyone using Microsoft Planner under the assumption that Essentials covered Planner Premium. It doesn’t, and it never will now.

What Microsoft is asking you to do before October 1

Straight from the recommendations in MC1466302:

  1. Review which users currently hold Project Online Essentials licenses.
  2. Determine whether each of those users needs Planner Premium capabilities, Project Server access rights, or both.
  3. For anyone who needs Planner Premium or Project Server CALs, assign Project and Planner Plan 1 or Plan 3.
  4. For users who only need Project Server Subscription Edition access rights, acquire the appropriate Project Server CALs directly.
  5. Finish the transition before October 1, 2026, and give your project managers, resource managers, and Project Server users a heads-up before anything changes under them.

Where this fits with the bigger deadline

If you’ve been tracking the broader Project Online retirement with us this year, you already know September 30, 2026 as the date the underlying service goes dark. MC1466302 is a separate, licensing-specific announcement, one day later, covering the CALs rather than the service itself. Different mechanism, same runway. Taken together, they’re the clearest signal yet that there’s no version of “wait and see” left on the table for organizations still running on Project Online or Project Server.

What to do this week

Whatever license path you land on, the first move is the same one we’ve been recommending all year: get your Project Online data out and secured before anything shuts off. That decision doesn’t need to wait on a migration plan.

That’s exactly what our Lifeboat Package is built for. It preserves your project data, custom fields, and every MPP file in formats you own and control, independent of whichever migration path you choose later. To guarantee delivery before the shutdown, engagements need to begin by September 22, 2026.

If you’re not sure yet whether your organization is affected, or you want a second set of eyes on your licensing review, we’re happy to help you sort it out.

Request a Data Assessment or call us at 888-858-3060.

PPM Works is a Microsoft Premier OnePlan Partner and approved Microsoft Partner working directly with organizations navigating the Project Online and Project Online Essentials end-of-life transition.