Canonical
21 September 2026
Canonical announces Zephyr 26.04 LTS, delivering up to 15 years of support for MCU-grade devices
The new enterprise distribution provides a trusted Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) to solve critical Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) compliance and developer experience challenges.
Anaheim, California – September 21, 2026 – Ahead of Embedded World North America, Canonical today announced the upcoming release of Zephyr 26.04 LTS, an enterprise-ready Zephyr distribution that builds on the upstream with long-term support and device management for both the core RTOS and a broader universe of microcontroller components.
Available as part of an Ubuntu Pro for Devices subscription, Zephyr 26.04 LTS is designed for silicon vendors and ODMs/OEMs building and maintaining MCU-grade embedded products. The distribution unlocks enterprise-grade reliability while deepening Canonical’s commitment as a steward and contributor to the upstream project.
As the regulatory landscape tightens and device deployments scale, device manufacturers face mounting pressure to maintain firmware over extended lifecycles, Zephyr 26.04 LTS brings the predictability of Ubuntu’s release cycles and enterprise-grade security to the microcontroller ecosystem, enabling manufacturers to source support for both Linux-class and microcontroller-class devices from a single vendor.
“Canonical has spent more than two decades earning trust in open source by delivering long-term support for software, starting with Ubuntu. Today, longer device lifecycles, rising customer expectations, and regulations like the EU Cyber Resilience Act make long-term support a necessity for device makers, not a luxury. Zephyr 26.04 LTS brings our proven model to microcontrollers. As someone who has been a long-time member of the Zephyr community, I’m personally excited to see the project take its next step in maturity, and proud to be part of it.”
– Jonathan Beri, Head of Product, IoT, Canonical
Critical lifecycle management and CRA readiness
The EU CRA has entered into force, mandating that manufacturers provide a minimum of 5 years of security maintenance, patching, and record keeping for their devices. Zephyr 26.04 LTS goes beyond upstream Zephyr’s 5 years of standard support, providing up to 15 years of security maintenance. This provides a stable foundation for manufacturers looking to stay compliant without disruptions.
Stability doesn’t just come in the form of lengthened patching, but through a stable release cycle. Zephyr 26.04 LTS will follow the same established release cycle as the rest of Canonical’s software, mirroring the release cadence of Ubuntu, Canonical Kubernetes, and other products in the ecosystem, with LTS releases coming out every two years, and interim releases every six months.
For LTS releases, the Zephyr 26.04 LTS commitment extends beyond Zephyr itself to include essential tooling from the wider microcontroller ecosystem, such as West, Zephyr’s meta-tool used for managing repositories, building, and flashing firmware and widely adopted among developers. This approach mirrors the comprehensive maintenance and provenance model Canonical delivers to Linux-class devices via Ubuntu Pro, ensuring that support reaches popular packages from the wider open source ecosystem.
“As embedded developers and device manufacturers navigate increasingly complex requirements, including new cybersecurity regulations such as the EU Cyber Resilience Act, access to commercially supported, long-term solutions can help organizations bring open source technology into production with greater confidence. Canonical’s new support offering is a welcome addition to the Zephyr ecosystem. It provides manufacturers with an option for the long-term lifecycle assurance they need while reinforcing Zephyr as the RTOS of choice for production-grade embedded systems.”
– Kate Stewart, VP, Dependable Embedded Systems, Linux Foundation / Zephyr Project
“Avnet is excited to expand our partnership with Canonical beyond Ubuntu Pro and bring Zephyr 26.04 LTS to our customers. As manufacturers navigate increasing security, compliance, and lifecycle management requirements, Zephyr 26.04 LTS provides a compelling enterprise-grade RTOS option backed by the long-term support and reliability our customers expect from Canonical. Together, we’re helping customers accelerate innovation while reducing complexity across embedded and IoT deployments.”
– Alex Iuorio, Senior Vice President, Global Supplier Development, Avnet
Native OTA and cloud management with Golioth
Zephyr 26.04 LTS also natively supports Golioth Cloud’s software update capabilities. Golioth is an IoT cloud platform engineered to deliver secure software updates directly to microcontrollers in the field.
Including support for the Golioth SDK out of the box equips device makers with turnkey over-the-air (OTA) updates, unique credential provisioning, and remote device management. This complete delivery pipeline satisfies CRA field-update requirements without the burden of building custom tools.
Unlocking developer productivity with Canonical Workshop
To accelerate time-to-market, Canonical is introducing support for Zephyr LTS releases within Canonical Workshop, which provides repeatable, containerized development environments (sandboxed) in a single command.
Using the Workshop SDK for Zephyr 26.04 LTS, developers can access a ready-to-use Zephyr LTS environment on any hardware, complete with essential build tools. This agent-ready sandbox environment allows any developer to bypass complex toolchain configurations and execute west build immediately, streamlining onboarding and collaboration.
“Renesas’ long-lifecycle embedded processing products set a strong foundation for the next generation of secure, dependable embedded systems. By pairing this hardware foundation with Canonical’s enterprise-grade, long-term support for Zephyr, customers can gain the hardware longevity, software stability, and security maintenance needed across the entire product lifecycle. This powerful combination will accelerate the adoption of Zephyr for long-lived commercial products.”
– Yoshio Sato, Director, Technology Ecosystem, Embedded Processing Strategy & Enablement, Renesas Electronics
Join Canonical at Embedded World North America
Canonical will be at Embedded World North America at the Anaheim Convention Center from September 22-24, 2026.
To dive deeper into navigating long-term device security and new regulatory requirements, join Jonathan Beri, Head of Product, IoT at Canonical, for his session: “Surviving the CRA: Architecting Zephyr for 15-Year Lifecycles and Long-Term Compliance.” The talk will take place on Day 3 (Thursday, September 24) at 10:50 AM in the Zephyr: Zephyr Testing and Compliance track.
With Zephyr 26.04 LTS, developers can focus on delivering applications to their users, and less time on maintaining the Zephyr codebase. To learn more about Zephyr 26.04 LTS, visit our dedicated product page.
