Oracle technical support for licensed software is governed by the Oracle Software Technical Support Policies, a document that Oracle revises from time to time. The version reviewed here took effect on 17 August 2026.[1] The policies define how support is ordered and priced: annual fees paid in advance for a 12-month support period, the license set that must be supported as a whole, the rule that all licenses in a set sit at the same service level, and the pricing consequences of terminating licenses or letting support lapse. They also incorporate Oracle’s Lifetime Support Policy, which sets out how long each program release receives Premier, Extended and Sustaining Support. Oracle publishes the release dates in separate coverage documents for technology products, Fusion Middleware, applications and other product families.[1][6]
Support terms matter for license management because support and license entitlements interact. Updates, including new major releases, are available only to customers who have ordered support that includes them. Unsupported programs may not be updated from media obtained for other purposes. The matching and repricing rules also limit how far an organisation can reduce support costs by dropping individual licenses.[1]
Support levels
Lifetime Support consists of three service levels (Oracle Lifetime Support):[1]
| Level | When available | What it includes | Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premier Support, documented on orders as Software Update License & Support | Five years from the general availability of a program release | Updates, fixes, security alerts and critical patch updates; tax, legal and regulatory updates; upgrade scripts; certification with most new third-party products; major releases; 24x7 service requests | Software Update License & Support |
| Extended Support (if offered) | Generally three further years, only for the terminal patchset release | As Premier Support, without certification with new third-party products; separate fee on top of the Premier Support fee | Extended Support |
| Sustaining Support | Indefinitely, while annual support fees are paid | Fixes, updates and scripts created during Premier and Extended Support; service requests on a commercially reasonable basis; no new fixes or security alerts, no 24-hour Severity 1 commitment | Sustaining Support |
For Oracle Database releases designated as Innovation Releases, Premier Support is available for two years from general availability rather than five (Oracle Database Innovation Release Premier Support two years).[1]
Oracle also sells an Incident Server Support Package for a limited product set, including Database Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition, Partitioning and Real Application Clusters. It provides web-based support per server in packages of 10 service requests used within 12 months. It does not include updates, cannot be combined with any other support offering, and is not subject to the reinstatement rules.[1] The 15 September 2026 price list shows the Database package at USD 2,304 for 10 incidents on one server.[4]
Metrics
Support is priced per license and follows the metric of the underlying license, such as Processor, Named User Plus or Employee. On the Oracle Technology Global Price List each license row carries a first-year “Software Update License & Support” price, which is 22% of the license price on the rows shown (for example USD 10,450 against USD 47,500 for an Enterprise Edition Processor).[4] The price list notes that these prices apply to first-year support only, for both perpetual and term licenses.[4] The Incident Server Support Package is the exception: it is priced per server.
Counting / floors
License set
A license set is the unit of support. It consists of all licenses of a program together with any options and Enterprise Management programs licensed for it (for example, Database Enterprise Edition with its options and Diagnostics Pack). It also includes all licenses of programs that share the same source code, and licenses of the same program whether bought as perpetual licenses or subscriptions (License set definition for technical support).[1] The policies list the programs that share source code, including:
- Database Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition, Standard Edition One, Standard Edition 2 and Personal Edition.
- Internet Application Server Enterprise and Standard Editions, WebLogic Server Enterprise and Standard Editions, WebLogic Suite, Web Tier, WebLogic Suite for Applications and iAS Java Edition.
Development and demonstration licenses obtained through the Oracle Partner Network or the Oracle Technology Network are not part of a license set.[1]
Matching service levels
All licenses in a license set must be supported at the same service level. A customer cannot support a subset of the set: unsupported licenses must be terminated, and the termination is documented in a termination letter. A customer who adds Extended Support must still keep Software Update License & Support on the whole set, and must buy Extended Support for all licenses of a version release if it buys it for any of them (Matching service levels within a license set).[1]
Repricing after a reduction
Support pricing depends on the level of support and the volume of licenses supported. If a subset of licenses on a single order is terminated, or the support level is reduced, support for the remaining licenses on that order is repriced at Oracle’s list price for support at that time, minus the applicable standard discount. The result may not exceed the previous fees (plus country annual adjustments) for both the remaining and the terminated licenses, and may not fall below the previous fees for the licenses still supported. If the order established a price hold for additional licenses, all licenses bought under the price hold are repriced in the same way (Support repricing after license termination or support reduction).[1] The practical effect is that removing part of a discounted order may not lower the annual support bill by the proportion of licenses removed.
Reinstatement
If support lapses, or was never bought with a license, a reinstatement fee applies. After a lapse, the fee is 150% of the last annual support fee, prorated from the date support is reordered back to the lapse date. For programs that were never supported, it is 150% of the support fee that would originally have applied, prorated back to the license order date. The support fee for the new 12-month period is payable in addition (Support reinstatement fee).[1]
Renewal and Extended Support fees
The 15 September 2026 price list describes renewals as the prior year’s support fee increased by the Inflationary Adjustment Rate (IAR). Where a Contractual Cap Rate (CCR) is active, the increase is the lower of the CCR and the IAR, and any support cap in the governing agreement limits the adjustment (Support renewal adjustment (IAR and CCR)).[4] The same notes state that Extended Support costs the prior year’s support fee plus the renewal adjustment, plus 10% of the current year’s support fee in year 6 after release and 20% in years 7 and 8 (Extended Support fee uplift by year).[4]
The Technical Support Policies list exceptions where the Extended Support fee is waived (Java SE Extended Support fee waivers):[1]
| Program | Fee waived |
|---|---|
| Java SE 8 | March 2022 to December 2030 |
| Java SE 11 | October 2023 to January 2032 |
| Java SE 17 | October 2026 to September 2029 |
| Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13.5 | 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2026 |
Release support dates
The Lifetime Support Policy coverage documents give the support dates for each release (Oracle Database 19c and 26ai support dates; WebLogic Server support dates):[2][3]
| Release | GA | Premier Support ends | Extended Support ends |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oracle Database 19c (Long Term Support) | Apr 2019 | Dec 2029 | Dec 2032 |
| Oracle Database 21c (Innovation Release) | Aug 2021 | Jul 2027 | Not available |
| Oracle Database 26ai Enterprise Edition (Long Term Support) | Oct 2025 | Dec 2031 | TBD |
| WebLogic Server 12.2.x | Oct 2015 | Dec 2026 | Dec 2027 |
| WebLogic Server 14.1.x | Mar 2020 to Dec 2024 | Dec 2030 | Dec 2033 |
| WebLogic Server 15.x | Oct 2025 | Oct 2030 | Oct 2033 |
Sustaining Support is listed as “Indefinite” for every release in these tables. For Oracle Database 19c, both documents note that between May 2027 and December 2032 support will exclude Java 8-related third-party software, mainly affecting the AIX, zLinux, HP-UX, Solaris and Windows ports.[1][2]
Virtualization & partitioning
The support policies contain no virtualization or partitioning rules. The number of licenses to support is fixed by the license position under the License Definitions and Rules and the Oracle Partitioning Policy. See Oracle Partitioning Policy.
Cloud / BYOL
Licenses brought to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure under Oracle BYOL must remain supported. Oracle’s BYOL FAQ answers “Yes” to the question of whether customers must continue to pay annual support fees for on-premises licenses used for BYOL to PaaS.[5] The Universal Credits Service Descriptions consistently refer to “supported” licenses as the basis for BYOL entitlement. See Oracle Cloud Infrastructure BYOL and Universal Credits.
Programs
The policies apply to support ordered directly from Oracle or through an Oracle-authorized distributor. Customers moving from a distributor to Oracle may pay an uplift on the reinstatement and support fees. Partners that provide first-line support for Embedded Software License (ESL) or Application Specific Full Use (ASFU) end users have a license set made up of the end user’s licenses in the application package.[1] Support terms in unlimited license agreements are contract-specific and are not described in the policies. See Oracle ULA and PULA.
Out of scope
- Hardware, Exadata and Oracle Linux support policies, and the Oracle Cloud Hosting and Delivery Policies, which Oracle publishes as separate documents on the same policies index.[6]
- Advanced Customer Support and Platinum Services pricing.
- Negotiated support caps or price holds in individual ordering documents.