How many software updates will the Galaxy S26 receive?

Updates galore for the Galaxy S26 series

Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy S26 series in the first quarter of 2026. While we don't have an exact date, we can expect the phones to arrive with One UI 8 based on Android 16 out of the box. We can also expect that Samsung will once again offer up to seven years of OS upgrades and software updates for the phones, a software update promise that it has adopted for the past few generations of flagship phones.

This is a practice that Samsung started with the Galaxy S24 series. But what does this mean for you?

Well, it means you can hold onto your phone for much longer without worrying about it being outdated. When a new Samsung flagship launches, Samsung normally updates it regularly each month with a new security patch, and after some time, that cadence will slow to once a quarter and then biannual updates toward the end of its life.

Beyond monthly security patches, Samsung may occasionally provide bug fixes and feature updates. These would be separate from major OS upgrades, which normally arrive once a year with new features, updated UI elements, and more.

With the Galaxy S26 series, we can then expect owners to continue receiving updates until 2032 and likely receive Android 23 or whatever the software will be called then.

However, it's worth noting that as time goes on, the aging chipset may not be able to support all the new features that are announced each year, as they will be initially designed to work on newer chipsets before Samsung tries to optimize for older devices/chips.

Fortunately, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which is expected to power the Galaxy S26 series, is plenty powerful and should be able to handle much of what's thrown at it over the next few years, including new AI capabilities such as agentic AI. The Exynos 2600, which is also expected to power the series in certain regions, should be capable of supporting seven years of upgrades.