Claude 3 Opus retirement date: January 5, 2026
Retired on January 5, 2026; requests to claude-3-opus-20240229 now fail.
- Provider
- Anthropic
- Model IDs affected
claude-3-opus-20240229- Announced
- June 30, 2025
- Shutdown date
- January 5, 2026
- Replacement
- claude-opus-4-8
- Platforms
- Dates apply to the Claude API and other Anthropic-operated platforms. Amazon Bedrock and Claude Models on Google Cloud (Google managed) set their own retirement schedules, so check those model tables separately.
- Source
- Official Anthropic deprecations page (data last changed 2026-11-02, re-checked daily)
Migrating from Claude 3 Opus to Claude Opus 4.8
Not yet reviewed. We haven't written model-specific migration notes for Claude 3 Opus yet. Start with the provider's official guidance and the replacement's model page, and use this general checklist:
- Search your code, config and environment variables for
claude-3-opus-20240229. - Re-run your evaluation set against claude-opus-4-8 before switching traffic.
- Recount tokens with the new model's tokenizer and re-check
max_tokens, context fit and cost. - Check tool calling, structured output and stop sequences on your real prompts.
- Dates apply to the Claude API and other Anthropic-operated platforms. Amazon Bedrock and Claude Models on Google Cloud (Google managed) set their own retirement schedules, so check those model tables separately.
Check your code before Jan 5
All model retirements · All Anthropic deprecations
FAQ
When was Claude 3 Opus retired?
Claude 3 Opus (claude-3-opus-20240229) was retired on the Claude API on January 5, 2026, according to the official Claude API deprecations page. Requests to it now fail.
What should I use instead of claude-3-opus-20240229?
The recommended replacement is claude-opus-4-8.
What happens to claude-3-opus-20240229 requests after the shutdown date?
After a model is retired, API requests to it return an error. Move traffic to the replacement and test it on your own prompts before the date.
Does this date apply to Amazon Bedrock, Vertex AI or Azure?
Dates apply to the Claude API and other Anthropic-operated platforms. Amazon Bedrock and Claude Models on Google Cloud (Google managed) set their own retirement schedules, so check those model tables separately.