Dynamics NAV 2017 and 2018 end of support: the key dates

end of support for NAV 2017

11 Jan 2027

end of support for NAV 2018, the last version

11 Jan 2028

Swiss companies on the list still on NAV with no known migration

210

companies on the list with a migration to Business Central under way or planned

34

The timeline, version by version

Each version of Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision) follows Microsoft’s Fixed Lifecycle Policy: about five years of mainstream support, then five years of extended support (R2 releases share the dates of their base version). The dates below are those Microsoft publishes on its lifecycle pages.

Older versions (Navision, NAV 4.0, NAV 5.0) have been out of support for years. Business Central, NAV’s successor since 2018, follows the Modern Lifecycle Policy: two major updates a year, which customers must keep up with.

What the end of support means in practice

NAV does not stop working the day after support ends. But, step by step, the company loses the protection it had:

• End of mainstream support: no more bug fixes and no more regulatory or tax updates from Microsoft. For NAV 2018, this has been the case since January 2023.
• End of extended support: no more security updates and no technical support from Microsoft. Vulnerabilities discovered after that date remain unpatched.
• Day to day: every change to the infrastructure (Windows Server, SQL Server, Office) becomes a compatibility risk, and new legal requirements, for instance on payment formats, have to be custom-built by the partner.
• Skills are getting scarce: developers who know C/AL, NAV’s programming language, are increasingly hard to find as the market has moved on to AL and Business Central.

How many Swiss companies are affected?

As of 2 November 2026, our list includes 210 Swiss companies on Dynamics NAV with no known migration. Another 34 have a migration to Business Central under way or planned.

The version is known for 47 of these companies. According to their latest evidence, 24 of them run a version whose support has already ended (NAV 2016 or older), 16 run NAV 2017 and 7 run NAV 2018. In other words, half of them already work without any support from Microsoft, and a third will lose it on 11 January 2027.

Geographically, the NAV and AX base is concentrated in German-speaking Switzerland: 263 of the 296 companies still on NAV or AX, or migrating. Zurich (50), Bern (48), Lucerne (30), Aargau (27) and St. Gallen (20) have the most. Our overview of Microsoft Dynamics in Switzerland covers every canton.

Four options for companies on NAV

1. Business Central online: the path Microsoft promotes. The NAV database must first be upgraded to Business Central on-premises (version 14, then a current version); Microsoft’s migration tool then moves the data to the cloud. Custom code written in C/AL has to be rebuilt as extensions in AL.
2. Business Central on-premises: the same product, run on the company’s own servers or by a hosting provider. Custom code also has to become AL extensions.
3. Another ERP: Abacus, SAP Business One, Odoo or an industry solution. The end of support is often the moment to put the choice of ERP back on the table.
4. Staying on NAV: possible in the short term, with a partner who keeps maintaining it, but without security updates from Microsoft once extended support ends.

Why 2027 will be the decisive year

A migration from NAV to Business Central usually takes several months, sometimes more than a year when there is a lot of custom code. A company on NAV 2018 that wants to be ready before 11 January 2028 must therefore choose its solution and its partner in 2027 at the latest. For partners, the projects are being decided now.

Our NAV/AX migration list shows, for every company still on NAV or AX, the version and the end of its support when known, and the migration status. Ask for a free 20-row sample.