Laravel upgrade guide: from Laravel 8 toward a current version

Teams postpone Laravel upgrades until a security notice or a hosting change forces the issue. By then the jump is several major versions and a pile of abandoned packages. The upgrade is still doable. It is not a single composer command.

Start with an audit, not a target version

Read composer.json and the lock file. List packages that do not support the PHP version you need, and packages that have no maintained successor. That list is the upgrade. The Laravel version number is the last line, not the first.

Also note tests. An app with a real test suite can move faster because failures are visible. An app with no tests needs a smaller first slice and more manual checks. Pretending otherwise is how upgrades ship broken logins.

Move in steps you can deploy

Jumping from Laravel 8 straight to the newest release in one branch is sometimes possible and often miserable. A practical path:

1. Get onto a supported PHP version the current app can already run, if it cannot.
2. Replace or remove packages that block the next framework release.
3. Upgrade one or two major Laravel versions, run the app, fix what broke.
4. Repeat until you are on a version you are willing to stay on.

Each step should be deployable. A three-month branch that cannot merge is how the upgrade dies.

What usually breaks

Authentication scaffolding from older starter kits. Custom macros on facades that changed. Queued jobs with serialised models. Front-end build tools that were pinned years ago. None of these are surprises if you read the upgrade guides for each version you cross. They are surprises if you only read the newest one.

How to buy this work

Ask for an audit price and an upgrade price separately. The audit is a read. The upgrade is a fixed price once the blockers are listed. Hourly is reasonable only if you are mixing new features into the same branch — which you should avoid until the upgrade is done.

If you want that audit, the service is Laravel development. Do not attach a redesign to the upgrade unless you mean to pay for both.