GPT-4o and GPT-4.1 API Shutdowns: Dates and Migration Plan
OpenAI set January 2027 GPT-4o and GPT-4.1 API removal dates, while older snapshots end October 23. See exact model IDs and a migration checklist.
OpenAI announced on October 14, 2026 that specific GPT-4o and GPT-4.1 API snapshots will be removed on January 14, 2027. The new notice affects dated API model IDs, not every model with a similar name. Developers should inventory their integrations now and distinguish this January deadline from a separate legacy-model shutdown on October 23, 2026.
Which API models are affected?
| API model ID | Shutdown | Recommended replacement |
|---|---|---|
| gpt-4o-2024-08-06; gpt-4o-2024-11-20 | January 14, 2027 | gpt-6-luna |
| gpt-4o-mini-2024-07-18 | January 14, 2027 | gpt-6-luna |
| gpt-4.1-2025-04-14 | January 14, 2027 | gpt-6-luna |
| gpt-4.1-mini-2025-04-14 | January 14, 2027 | gpt-6-luna |
OpenAI says fine-tuned versions follow the shutdown schedule of their underlying base models. The listed replacement is a starting point for testing, not a guarantee that existing prompts, tool calls, JSON outputs, latency or costs will remain unchanged.
The earlier October 23 deadline
The official deprecations page also contains a separate, older notice for October 23, 2026. Examples include gpt-4-0613, gpt-4-turbo-2024-04-09, gpt-4o-2024-05-13 and gpt-4.1-nano-2025-04-14, alongside other legacy snapshots. This is only nine days after the latest announcement. Do not assume every GPT-4o snapshot shares the January deadline: compare exact model IDs against the official schedule.
Six steps to migrate without breaking production
- Inventory model IDs in app configuration, background jobs, staging, fine-tuned deployments and usage logs.
- Assign owners and separate October 23 removals from January 14 removals. Prioritize the earlier cutoff.
- Build representative evaluations covering edge cases, long inputs, tools and structured outputs.
- Test the suggested replacement against the incumbent. Measure task accuracy, latency, failures and total cost.
- Roll out gradually with monitoring for invalid-model errors, schema regressions and unexpected spend. Prepare a safe rollback.
- Update documentation and verify no production calls remain on retiring snapshots before their shutdown dates.
A simple dependency audit example
Suppose a customer-support app uses gpt-4o-2024-08-06 but an old nightly reporting job still calls gpt-4o-2024-05-13. The first has a January 14, 2027 cutoff; the second is listed for October 23, 2026. Updating the visible support app alone would leave the reporting job exposed. Track each model ID, service, owner, volume, target model, test status and deadline in one migration table. This workflow is illustrative; the deadlines come from OpenAI's published schedule.
This is a dependency-management story more than a model-ranking story. Use exact API identifiers, evaluate replacement quality on real tasks and migrate the October 23 group first. An official replacement recommendation does not remove the need for regression testing.
New GPT-4o and GPT-4.1 API snapshot removals arrive January 14, 2027, but older models shut down October 23, 2026. Check exact IDs and prioritize the earliest deadline.