SSL Certificate Validity Reduced to 199 Days: What You Need to Know
Starting February 24, 2026, all Certification Authorities (CAs) will begin issuing TLS/SSL certificates with a maximum validity of 199 days, down from the current 397 days. This is not a vendor-specific decision, but an industry-wide requirement mandated by the updated Baseline Requirements of the CA/Browser Forum. The primary objective is to strengthen overall internet security by reducing the exposure window of compromised certificates and enabling faster adoption of new cryptographic standards as threats evolve. Why Certificate Lifetimes Are Getting Shorter Shorter certificate validity periods bring several security and operational advantages: Reduced risk in case of private key compromise Faster response to vulnerabilities and cryptographic deprecations Improved alignment with modern automation-driven certificate management This change follows the same security-first approach that previously led to the reduction from multi-year certificates to one-year…
