Let's Encrypt, the world's largest certificate authority, announced that it will reduce the validity period of its free SSL/TLS certificates from 90 days to 64 days. This change is scheduled to take effect on February 10, 2027.
The organization also plans to further reduce the default validity period to 45 days by 2028. Additionally, the authorization reuse period will be shortened from 30 days to 10 days, with a future goal of reducing it to 7 hours by 2028.
To prepare for these changes, Let's Encrypt will open a testing phase on October 14, 2026. Administrators are encouraged to use this period to verify that their certificate issuance, deployment, and renewal processes are compatible with the new cycle.
The authority recommends that administrators ensure their ACME clients support ARI and configure alerts for renewal failures or certificate expirations. These measures are intended to prevent accidental certificate expirations after the new policy is implemented.
