There was a flurry of activity in the OpenJDK ecosystem during the week of November 3, 2025, highlighting three JEPs elevated from Proposed to Target to Targeted and three JEPs elevated from Candidate to Proposed to Target for JDK 26. The proposed release schedule has also been finalized.
JEPs Targeted for JDK 26
These three JEPs have been Targeted for JDK 26:
JEP 529, Vector API (Eleventh Incubator), announced here, proposes an eleventh incubation, with no substantial implementation changes since JDK 25, after ten rounds of incubation delivered in JDK 16 through JDK 25. This feature introduces an API to “express vector computations that reliably compile at runtime to optimal vector instructions on supported CPU architectures, thus achieving performance superior to equivalent scalar computations.” The Vector API will continue to incubate until the necessary features of Project Valhalla become available as preview features. At that time, the Vector API team will adapt the Vector API and its implementation to use them, and will promote the Vector API from Incubation to Preview.
JEP 516, Ahead-of-Time Object Caching with Any GC, announced here, proposes to enhance JEP 483, Ahead-of-Time Class Loading & Linking, delivered in JDK 24, for improved startup and warmup time such that it can be used with any garbage collector, including the low-latency Z Garbage Collector (ZGC).
JEP 500, Prepare to Make Final Mean Final, announced here, proposes to prepare the Java ecosystem that will not allow mutation of fields declared as final with deep reflection, generally practiced using the setAccessible() method defined in the AccessibleObject class.
JEPs Proposed to Target for JDK 26
These three JEPs have been Proposed to Target for JDK 26:
JEP 530, Primitive Types in Patterns, instanceof, and switch (Fourth Preview), announced here, proposes a fourth preview, with two changes, after three rounds of preview delivered in JDK 25 through JDK 23. The changes are: enhance the definition of unconditional exactness; and the application of tighter dominance checks in switch constructs. The review is expected to conclude on November 13, 2025.
JEP 526, Lazy Constants (Second Preview), announced here, proposes a second preview, with changes, after the first round of preview, namely: JEP 502, Stable Values (Preview), for JDK 26. Formerly known as Stable Values and Computed Constants, this feature introduces the concept of computed constants, defined as immutable value holders that are initialized at most once. This offers the performance and safety benefits of final fields, while offering greater flexibility as to the timing of initialization. Revisions for this JEP include: the name change from Stable Values to Lazy Constants as the new name better captures the intent of a high-level use case; and enhanced discoverability. The review is expected to conclude on November 12, 2025. InfoQ will follow up with a more detailed news story.
JEP 524, PEM Encodings of Cryptographic Objects (Second Preview), announced here, proposes a second round of preview, with changes, after the first round of preview, namely JEP 470, PEM Encoding of Cryptographic Objects (Preview), delivered in JDK 25. Changes include: a rename of the PEMRecord class to PEM; and an enhancement of the PEMEncoder and PEMDecoder classes to support the encryption and decryption of the KeyPair and PKCS8EncodedKeySpec classes. The review is expected to conclude on November 10, 2025. InfoQ will follow up with a more detailed news story.
JDK 26 Feature Set (So Far) and Release Schedule
The JDK 26 release schedule, recently approved by Mark Reinhold, Chief Architect, Java Platform Group at Oracle, is as follows:
- Rampdown Phase One (fork from main line): December 4, 2025
- Rampdown Phase Two: January 15, 2026
- Initial Release Candidate: February 5, 2026
- Final Release Candidate: February 19, 2026
- General Availability: March 17, 2026
With just over three weeks before the scheduled Rampdown Phase One, where the feature set for JDK 26 will be frozen, 10 JEPs, including those that are Proposed to Target, are in the feature set so far:
JDK 26 will be the first non-LTS release since JDK 25, released in September 2025.
