PQC Timeline

Separate published standards, regional guidance, and your own delivery milestones. A calendar date is useful only when its scope is clear.

PQC readiness roadmap illustrated with Inventory, Prioritize, Pilot, Migrate — PQC readiness roadmap — an illustrated overview of the topics on this page.

Content reviewed: October 25, 2026

Verified milestones

Date	Milestone and scope
August 2024	NIST publishes FIPS 203, 204, and 205.
March 2025	NIST selects HQC for standardization.
June 2025	EU coordinated implementation roadmap adopted.
End of 2026	EU roadmap calls for Member States to start transition.
2028 / 2031 / 2035	UK NCSC targets: discovery and planning / early high-priority migration / migration completion.
End of 2030	EU roadmap target for high-risk use cases.

Interpret deadlines carefully

UK NCSC targets guide organizational planning; the EU roadmap addresses coordinated transition. Neither table entry is a forecast for when a cryptographically relevant quantum computer will exist. Federal, national-security, and sector requirements can be different.

NIST IR 8547 remains an initial public draft in the migration reference reviewed here. Do not turn its proposed transition dates into an unqualified final mandate.

A delivery sequence you can control

Discover: identify applications, algorithms, libraries, certificates, and owners.
Prioritize: weigh data lifetime, criticality, external exposure, and replacement lead time.
Pilot: test supported protocol and algorithm combinations on representative paths.
Deploy: stage changes with telemetry, rollback, and documented exceptions.
Verify: demonstrate use of the intended protection and removal of obsolete dependencies.

Verified milestones

Interpret deadlines carefully

A delivery sequence you can control

Sources & further reading