BS7 End of Maintenance 2027: Three Scenarios and Their Decision Matrix
The date is set: on December 31, 2027, Mainstream Maintenance for SAP ERP 6.0 EhP 6-8 ends. Starting January 1, 2028, a new contract period begins under different conditions. If you have not made a decision by then, you automatically enter Extended Maintenance: your entire landscape, no cherry-picking, plus 2 percentage points on the Maintenance Base.
This decision does not get made on the deadline itself. It requires lead time: technical assessment, license inventory, contract negotiation. Organizations that are not yet in the analysis phase by late 2025 will face pressure. This article describes the three available scenarios, their respective contract mechanics, and the information you need before any path can be committed to.
The Maintenance Timeline at a Glance
Before evaluating the scenarios, it is worth reviewing the full deadline chain, because not all EHP versions run for the same duration.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Late 2025 | End of Compatibility Scope for non-qualifying on-prem S/4HANA systems |
| Dec 31, 2027 | End of Mainstream Maintenance for SAP ERP 6.0 EhP 6-8 and Solution Manager 7.2 |
| Jan 1, 2028 | Extended Maintenance starts (+2% on-prem); deadline for RISE/PCE eligibility |
| Dec 31, 2030 | End of Extended Maintenance, SolMan Extended, and Compatibility Scope Cloud |
| 2031-2033 | Transition Option (max. 3 years, 20% surcharge, Max Success Plan required) |
One important note: EhP 0-5 already dropped out of the Mainstream Maintenance cycle in 2025 and has been running under Customer-Specific Maintenance since then. Organizations still running EhP 0-5 face a different, more urgent problem. This article focuses on EhP 6-8, the current Mainstream baseline for most existing customers.
Solution Manager 7.2 follows the BS7 strategy directly: Mainstream through end of 2027, Extended through end of 2030. From 2031 onward, there will be no new SolMan release. The successor is SAP Cloud ALM.
What Mainstream Maintenance delivers through end of 2027: legal changes, support packages, and problem resolution. No functional growth, no AI access, no cloud path. If you are counting on expanded Mainstream coverage, that expectation will not be met.
Scenario 1: Full Landscape on RISE (PCE) by January 1, 2028
The first scenario is the only one that completely avoids the Extended Maintenance surcharge. The condition: all relevant systems must be moved to SAP ERP Private Cloud Edition (PCE) by January 1, 2028.
For PCE customers, Extended Maintenance is included in the subscription price. No separate addendum, no surcharge on a Maintenance Base, no all-or-nothing problem. The contract logic of RISE differs fundamentally from on-prem: the ACV (Annual Contract Value) bundles infrastructure, maintenance, and support into a single package.
This sounds simpler than it is. A complete migration by January 1, 2028 requires the project to have been set up by mid-2025 at the latest, and to be running without significant delays. For organizations with complex, organically grown SAP landscapes, this timeline is tight. If you have add-ons that are not supported in PCE, or if you face regulatory requirements mandating on-prem operations, Scenario 1 should not be treated as a given.
The governance moment for Scenario 1 lies in infrastructure: system sizing, hyperscaler selection, SLA alignment between your on-prem SLA and the RISE SLA. These parameters must be confirmed before contract signature, because they directly determine the ACV. What follows is contract governance after the signature, not migration planning.
Scenario 2: Extended Maintenance On-Prem
If you are still operating on-premise by January 1, 2028, you enter Extended Maintenance. Automatically, unless a different contract is in place.
Extended Maintenance is not a free continuation of the status quo. It is a paid addendum to the existing maintenance contract. The pricing structure: plus 2 percentage points on the Maintenance Base for all BS7 Core Applications, add-ons, and Runtime DB.
A practical example: an organization currently paying 22% Enterprise Support will pay 24% on the same base starting in 2028. With a Maintenance Base of EUR 1 million, that is EUR 20,000 in additional annual cost, from the surcharge alone. For larger landscapes, the absolute amounts scale accordingly.
This is a significant governance moment for costs. The Maintenance Base is not fixed. By deliberately surrendering no-longer-needed usage rights before the Extended Maintenance addendum is signed, the base can be reduced substantially. A widely cited example from SAP license optimization shows that a Maintenance Base of EUR 1 million can drop below EUR 50,000 after removing unused products, converted ECC engines, and cleaned-up user counts. The Extended Maintenance surcharge on that reduced base then becomes negligible from a budgeting perspective.
There is, however, a hard boundary: all-or-nothing. Extended Maintenance applies to the entire landscape or not at all. There is no way to carve out individual systems. This is a critical governance moment for entitlements: which systems are actually needed, and which can be surrendered? That question must be answered before the addendum is signed.
Extended Maintenance runs through December 31, 2030. Termination is possible with 90 days' notice to year-end. Organizations that have not made a full migration decision by 2030 will then face the Transition Option.
Scenario 3: S/4HANA Conversion (Contract or Product)
The third scenario is technically the most nuanced and contractually the most demanding. The goal is to reduce the Maintenance Base through targeted conversion of license rights before Extended Maintenance takes effect.
Two variants are available.
Contract Conversion: Classic ERP term licenses that are still actively used are transferred into a new license structure. No-longer-needed usage rights are surrendered. This reduces the Maintenance Base on which the +2% surcharge is calculated.
Product Conversion: Here, accumulated licenses are cleaned up. The basis for the calculation is the remaining lowest-discounted SKUs. The result is contractually more complex, but in certain license configurations it can unlock significantly more optimization potential.
In both cases, the Maintenance Base subject to the Extended Maintenance surcharge is substantially lower after the conversion. This makes Scenarios 3 and 4 a governance option worth evaluating in parallel with Scenario 2.
The governance moment for usage is especially relevant here: a conversion requires a precise inventory of currently active licenses. Without a valid data foundation, no well-founded conversion decision can be made. The SAP Readiness Check and an internal license registry are prerequisites, not optional inputs.
The Decision Matrix
Three scenarios, three distinct budget profiles, three distinct prerequisites. The matrix below summarizes the key differentiators.
| Criterion | Scenario 1: RISE by Jan 2028 | Scenario 2: Extended Maintenance | Scenario 3/4: S/4HANA Conversion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extended Maintenance surcharge | None (included in RISE ACV) | +2% on full Maintenance Base | +2% on reduced Maintenance Base |
| Decision timeline | Immediate (migration in progress) | By end of 2027 | Before Extended Maintenance start |
| Prerequisite | All systems in PCE by Jan 1, 2028 | Addendum to maintenance contract | License registry and conversion analysis |
| Governance moment (primary) | Infrastructure, costs | Costs, entitlements | Usage, costs |
| Complexity | High (migration) | Medium | High (contract work) |
| Duration | Ongoing from RISE go-live | 2028-2030 (extendable via Transition Option) | 2028-2030 (extendable via Transition Option) |
| Ideal for | Organizations with clear RISE commitment | Organizations deferring migration | Organizations with an optimizable license base |
One important addition: the scenarios are not mutually exclusive. An organization can enter 2027 with Scenario 2 or 3, optimize the base, and simultaneously prepare the RISE migration. What matters is that the decision is made deliberately and that the contract structure cleanly reflects the chosen strategy.
When Each Decision Needs to Be Made
The most common question in this context is: how much time is left? The answer depends on the chosen scenario.
For Scenario 1 (RISE by January 2028): if you had not yet started negotiations with SAP by late 2025, you are behind schedule. SAP negotiations, technical sizing analyses, and internal approval processes typically take 9 to 18 months. A RISE contract signed in spring 2026 realistically leaves 18 to 24 months for the technical migration. That is tight.
For Scenarios 2 and 3: the Maintenance Base optimization and the Extended Maintenance addendum must be completed before December 31, 2027. Depending on the landscape, the license inventory and conversion analysis require 3 to 6 months. Organizations that wait until mid-2027 will be working under time pressure.
Governance moment for entitlements: role structures and system landscape must be fully documented before a conversion decision is made. Without a systematic record of your landscape, none of the three scenarios can be negotiated cleanly.
Governance moment for costs: no conversion, no addendum, and no RISE contract should be signed without validating the ACV or the reduced Maintenance Base against the existing investment.
What Needs to Be Clarified Now
The decision matrix shows the options. Which option fits your situation depends on four questions that need to be answered internally.
1. How complete is the current license inventory? Without valid data on active licenses, current users, and add-on dependencies, no well-founded decision is possible.
2. Which add-ons are in use, and which ones have an S/4HANA equivalent? Add-ons not supported in either PCE or the Transition Option are a blocking factor for Scenarios 1 and 3.
3. How realistic is a full PCE go-live by January 1, 2028? This question should be answered based on a real project plan, not an assumption.
4. What Maintenance Base results from a conversion analysis? If the optimized base is substantially lower than the current one, that changes the cost logic for Scenario 2 considerably.
The governance moments that become relevant here are the same ones that matter in every phase of SAP contract governance: usage (what is actually deployed), entitlements (which roles on which systems), infrastructure (which systems run where), and costs (what each scenario costs over its lifetime). Organizations that have systematically captured these four areas make the BS7 decision from a stable information foundation.
Conclusion
The BS7 end of maintenance in 2027 is not a technical expiration date that can be ignored. It is a governance moment that forces a decision: RISE by January 2028, Extended Maintenance with or without optimization, or targeted conversion before the surcharge kicks in. All three paths are valid. None of them works without preparation.
What comes next, whether RISE operations from 2028, Extended Maintenance through 2030, or the Transition Option through 2033, is a separate question. But the foundation required, a complete license and system landscape plus a clear decision before the deadline, is the same for all three paths.
If you want to know which option fits your situation and what data is still missing: a contract check delivers clarity. Four weeks, fixed price at EUR 7,900.
Next Steps
If you would like your current on-premise contract reviewed for risks and available commercial levers: the FinOptory Contract Check is a fixed-price engagement that delivers a structured basis within four weeks.
This article is part of our topic hub on on-premise migration and the SAP transition option. To have one specific contract assessed, the FinOptory Contract Check delivers a structured basis within four weeks.
Last updated: July 2026