Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL: PostgreSQL 11 end of RDS Extended Support

After the RDS end of Extended Support date (31 Mar 2027), Amazon RDS automatically upgrades the major engine version of databases still on PostgreSQL 11.

• Major version upgrades can contain database changes that are not backward-compatible with existing applications.
• After an upgrade is complete, the database cannot revert to the previous version of the DB engine.

1. Before a major version upgrade, follow the steps in Choosing a major version for an RDS for PostgreSQL upgrade.
2. Find the valid upgrade targets for the database in the AWS Management Console or with the AWS CLI.
3. Perform the major version upgrade manually by modifying the DB instance or Multi-AZ DB cluster. In a Multi-AZ DB instance deployment or a Multi-AZ DB cluster deployment, the database might not be available for several minutes while the upgrade completes. See How to perform a major version upgrade for RDS for PostgreSQL.
4. To minimize downtime, use a blue/green deployment, see Using Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments for database updates.
5. Amazon RDS does not upgrade Multi-AZ DB cluster read replicas. Their replication state changes to terminated, and they must be deleted and recreated manually after the upgrade completes. In-Region read replicas of a DB instance are upgraded along with the primary DB instance, with an outage until the upgrade is complete.
6. If the backup retention period is greater than 0, Amazon RDS takes a DB snapshot before any upgrade changes are made. If the upgrade fails, that snapshot can be restored to create a database running the old version. A custom backup retention period cannot be configured for a Multi-AZ DB cluster.