Since September 2026, Oracle JDK 21 updates from 21.0.13 need a subscription for production use.
A Java license review finds every Java installation in your company and the license each one falls under, so you know what you owe Oracle, if anything, before Oracle asks. Since January 2023 Oracle has priced Java SE per employee, for the whole company. Most of our clients pay Oracle nothing after the review.
$0what most of our clients pay Oracle for Java after the review
| Employees | Price a year |
|---|---|
| Up to 10 | $100 |
| 500 | $10,000 |
| 3,000 | $378,000 |
From 3,000 employees Oracle charges per employee per month, starting at $10.50 and falling with volume.
Oracle changed Java licensing in January 2019 and again in January 2023. Java went from free for most uses to a largely commercial license, and each change brought more installations under the paid terms. Which terms apply depends on the version and the update you run (Oracle Java SE Licensing FAQ, 20 October 2026).
| Oracle Java version | License | Production use |
|---|---|---|
| Oracle JDK 25 | No-Fee Terms and Conditions (NFTC) | Free until September 2028 |
| Oracle JDK 21 | NFTC up to 21.0.12; OTN from 21.0.13, after September 2026 | Later updates need a subscription |
| Oracle JDK 17 | NFTC up to 17.0.12; OTN from 17.0.13, after September 2024 | Later updates need a subscription |
| Oracle JDK 11 | OTN for all releases | Needs a subscription |
| Oracle JDK 8 | OTN from 8u211, April 2019 | Needs a subscription |
| OpenJDK builds | Open source, such as Eclipse Temurin, Amazon Corretto, Azul Zulu and Liberica | No license fee |
The OTN licenseAllows personal use, development, testing, prototyping and demonstrating. Production use needs a subscription.
Java inside Oracle productsOracle products that include Java may use that Java for that product only.
Java inside other vendors’ softwareJava bundled in a third-party application is often licensed through that product, for use with it. Check each vendor’s terms.
How the rules changed, release by release: Java license changes, year by year.
The Java SE Universal Subscription is priced on your total employee count, not on the number of people or machines using Java. Oracle’s position is that one machine running commercial Java means you pay for every employee.
Who countsFull-time, part-time and temporary staff, and the staff of contractors, outsourcers and consultants who support your internal operations.
A single serverA 10,000-person company with Oracle Java on one server is licensed for 10,000 people, not for one.
Company size sets the billOn Oracle’s own examples, 2,999 employees cost $377,852.80 a year and 3,000 employees cost $378,000 ($10.50 a month each).
The remedyNot arguing the count down, but reducing or removing commercial Oracle Java from your environment.
The bill is the same whichever way Java is used: 3,000 × $10.50 × 12 months
Oracle’s position: one machine running commercial Java means you pay for every employee.
The full price list, and what the alternatives cost: Java license cost, and the move to zero-cost Java.
We have seen formal audits of end-user companies for their use of Java since June 2022, alongside more discussions about wrong usage of Java, more formal approaches to sell Java subscriptions, and audits of software vendors for their sale and sub-licensing of Java.
How Oracle finds youDownload records from oracle.com, support interactions and commercial outreach. Increasingly, Oracle sends formal letters and emails asking companies to confirm their Java usage.
How to respondCarefully. Do not confirm headcounts, deployment scope or compliance status before you have run an internal baseline. Acknowledge the letter, ask what Oracle is requesting, and bring in independent advice before any data goes back.
What Oracle wantsA subscription, often on a multi-year contract that locks in the revenue.
We have developed discovery and license normalization techniques that give you an enterprise-wide inventory of Java, from Oracle, open source, IBM, Red Hat and others, and an effective license position for it. Start to finish, not just a report.
For many organizations the realistic goal is to pay Oracle nothing for Java. OpenJDK builds are functionally equivalent to Oracle JDK for almost all applications, and several are free with commercial support available. Once every Oracle Java installation is found, replaced or confirmed as licensed through another product, with records to show it, there is nothing left to subscribe to. Where an application vendor requires Oracle Java, we check whether that vendor’s license already covers it.
Financial services, mid-sizedFacing annual Java costs of over $500,000 for Java SE 8 in production. After the review it remediated every potentially non-compliant deployment and brought its Java costs to zero.
Manufacturing, globalUnsure of its obligations under Oracle’s new terms. By restructuring its deployments and renegotiating its Oracle contract, it cut its Java license costs by 70%.
Everyone elseMost of our clients pay Oracle nothing after the review. Others reduce Oracle’s asking price by 60% to 90% through remediation, OpenJDK migration and negotiation.
Oracle changed Java licensing in 2019 and again in January 2023, when Java SE moved to a per-employee subscription. For many enterprises this multiplied Java costs overnight, even when actual Java usage had not changed.
You pay a per-employee price for your total employee count, not your Java user count. Oracle counts full-time, part-time and temporary staff, and the staff of contractors, outsourcers and consultants who support your internal operations. On Oracle’s price list of 8 October 2026, 3,000 employees cost $378,000 a year.
Under the per-employee subscription, yes: that is Oracle’s position. The remedy is not arguing the count down, but reducing or removing commercial Oracle Java in your environment.
Oracle JDK 25 is free under the No-Fee Terms and Conditions until September 2028. Oracle JDK 21 up to 21.0.12 and Oracle JDK 17 up to 17.0.12 are also under those terms. Later updates of 21 and 17, and the current updates of 11 and 8, are under the OTN license, which does not allow production use without a subscription.
For most applications, yes. Eclipse Temurin, Amazon Corretto, Azul Zulu and Liberica are production-grade OpenJDK distributions used by major enterprises. Compatibility issues exist with very old or vendor-locked applications, which is why discovery and classification come before migration.
Through download records from oracle.com, support interactions and commercial outreach. Increasingly, Oracle also sends formal letters and emails asking companies to confirm usage. Once you are on Oracle’s radar, the conversation is hard to put off for long.
Carefully. Do not confirm headcounts, deployment scope or compliance status before running an internal baseline. Acknowledge the letter, ask what Oracle is requesting, and bring in independent advice before any data goes back. We have helped many clients respond in ways that ended the conversation without payment.
Discovery across servers and endpoints, classification into Oracle commercial, Oracle no-fee, OpenJDK and third-party distributions, matching against your Oracle and third-party entitlements, the license requirement, remediation and rebalancing recommendations, and direct support in any negotiation or audit with Oracle.
Most of our clients pay Oracle nothing after the review, because they were fully licensed or their commercial usage was negligible. Others reduce Oracle’s asking price by 60% to 90% through remediation, OpenJDK migration and negotiation.
Almost never. Java is licensed separately from Database, Middleware and Application ULAs, and the ordering document settles it. Customers often assume a ULA gives them blanket Java coverage; Oracle’s contracts almost never agree.
No. Rythium is independent and does not resell licenses or support, or earn income from Oracle or any support provider.
Tell us where you stand. Nothing you share goes to Oracle, and we will tell you what a review would cover for an estate like yours.
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