Laravel 12 prioritises maintenance, delivering enhancements for faster, more efficient, and secure development.

Laravel 12 was released on February 24, 2025, and it is a deliberately steady release. Instead of introducing a long list of breaking changes, it continues the improvements made in Laravel 11, updates upstream dependencies and gives teams a cleaner starting point for new applications.

That makes Laravel 12 less about headline-grabbing change and more about keeping applications modern, maintainable and easier to move forward.

A maintenance-focused release

The biggest thing to understand about Laravel 12 is that it is designed to be a relatively minor maintenance release. Laravel’s own release notes describe the focus as minimising breaking changes, upgrading dependencies and continuing quality-of-life improvements without disrupting existing applications.

For businesses with existing Laravel applications, that is useful. It means the upgrade path should be more predictable than a major framework release that changes core application structure or requires widespread code changes.

New official starter kits

The most visible Laravel 12 change is the introduction of new official application starter kits for React, Svelte, Vue and Livewire.

The React, Svelte and Vue starter kits use Inertia, TypeScript, Tailwind and shadcn-based component libraries. The Livewire starter kit uses Laravel Volt and the Tailwind-based Flux UI component library.

These starter kits include authentication flows such as login, registration, password reset and email verification, giving development teams a stronger foundation for new products and internal tools.

Optional WorkOS AuthKit support

Laravel 12 also introduced WorkOS AuthKit-powered variants of the starter kits. These add options such as social authentication, passkeys and single sign-on support.

That does not mean every project needs WorkOS. For many applications, Laravel’s built-in authentication will still be the right starting point. But for teams that need enterprise-style authentication features earlier in a project, the option is now much easier to access.

Breeze and Jetstream are no longer the future path

With the arrival of the new starter kits, Laravel Breeze and Laravel Jetstream are no longer receiving additional updates.

That is worth knowing if you are starting a new project or planning a rebuild. Existing applications using Breeze or Jetstream do not suddenly stop working, but new projects should consider the newer starter kits first.

Laravel 12 support timeline

Laravel provides bug fixes for 18 months and security fixes for 2 years. For Laravel 12, the current official support window is:

• Released on February 24, 2025
• Bug fixes until August 13, 2026
• Security fixes until February 24, 2027
• Supported PHP versions from 8.2 to 8.5

You can read Laravel’s current release and support notes on the official Laravel release notes.

What this means for your application

If your application is already on Laravel 11, Laravel 12 should be a practical upgrade to assess as part of normal maintenance. The release is intentionally light on disruption, but every real application still needs its dependencies, packages and custom code reviewed before upgrading.

If you are on an older Laravel version, the conversation is more urgent. Unsupported versions no longer receive the same security coverage, which can create avoidable risk for systems that handle customer data, payments, operations or business-critical workflows.

For teams planning something more bespoke, our bespoke software system for the gifting industry shows how a strong technical foundation can support a much larger product vision.

Should you upgrade to Laravel 12?

For active Laravel applications, Laravel 12 is worth planning for if you want to stay current, reduce long-term maintenance risk and keep your framework support window healthy.

For new applications, Laravel 12 gives teams a modern starting point with official starter kits, updated dependencies and a clear path for authentication, frontend structure and future maintenance.

The right timing depends on the application, the packages it relies on and how business-critical the system is. A planned upgrade is almost always better than waiting until framework support becomes urgent.