Office 2021 Support Ends in October: Act Now

If your business bought Microsoft Office 2021 as a one-off purchase rather than a subscription, there is an important date coming up: 13 October 2026. On that day, Microsoft will stop issuing security updates, bug fixes, and technical support for Office 2021. After that point, your Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook installations will still open and run – but they will not receive the security patches that keep them protected.

This is not a long way off. You have roughly three months.

What “end of support” actually means

When Microsoft ends support for a product, it stops releasing fixes for newly discovered security flaws. Cybercriminals are well aware of these cutoff dates. In the months and years after a product goes out of support, the pace of attacks on it typically increases – because attackers know their exploit will never be patched.

Unlike some older Microsoft products, Office 2021 comes with no Extended Security Update (ESU) programme. With Windows Server 2012, for example, Microsoft offered businesses up to three years of paid security patches after the standard deadline passed. Office 2021 has no equivalent. After 13 October, there is nothing you can buy that keeps it patched.

Who is affected

Office 2021 – including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Publisher, and Project – is sold as what Microsoft calls a “perpetual licence.” You pay once and it is yours forever. Many businesses chose this route specifically to avoid the ongoing cost of a subscription. If your business is in that category, this deadline affects you directly.

Worth noting: Microsoft 365 Apps – the subscription version of Office – is not affected. It updates continuously and will remain fully supported.

Your options before October

You have two practical paths:

Move to Microsoft 365 Apps

This is the subscription model, and it means Office is always on the latest, supported version. It also brings Teams, OneDrive, cloud backup for documents, and the full Microsoft 365 security toolset. For most businesses, this is the right direction of travel, and it is the option we recommend most often. Microsoft 365 Business plans start from around £10 per user per month and include far more than Office alone.

Upgrade to Office LTSC 2024

Microsoft released a new perpetual licence version in 2024 that carries its own five-year support window, taking you through to 2029. This is an option for businesses that genuinely cannot move to a subscription model – for example, those with regulatory reasons to avoid cloud storage, or air-gapped environments. Be aware, though, that you will face this same conversation again in a few years.

What to do now

The first step is to understand exactly what you have. Many businesses are not certain which version of Office is installed across their devices, especially where hardware has been bought gradually over the years. Checking is simple: open Word or Excel, go to File > Account, and look at the product information shown there.

If you are on Office 2021, the three months before October is the right window to plan and carry out a migration. Leaving it until October means rushing changes that affect every user in the business – and that usually goes badly.

We suggest working through this list now:

• Audit your estate to confirm which users are on Office 2021 and which are already on Microsoft 365
• Decide between Microsoft 365 Apps and LTSC 2024 based on your workflow and cloud readiness
• Plan any user communication and training needed if you are moving to Microsoft 365 for the first time
• Test the migration with a small group before rolling it out across the business

How System Force IT can help

Migrating clients to Microsoft 365 is something we do regularly. We handle licence management, data migration, configuration, and user rollout as part of our managed IT services, so your team experiences as little disruption as possible.

We also manage ongoing Microsoft 365 environments – keeping updates, security policies, and access controls current long after the migration is complete. Our cloud systems service covers everything from initial planning to long-term day-to-day management.

If you are not sure what version of Office your business is running, or if you know you are on Office 2021 and want to get ahead of the October deadline, get in touch with us. We work with businesses across Gloucestershire and the wider UK.

You may also find these pages useful:

• IT support and maintenance services
• IT security for UK businesses
• Cyber Essentials certification