How Shorter TLS Lifespans Will Change SSL Renewal Frequency

When SSL/TLS certificates first became standard for securing websites, it was common to install one and not think about it again for years. Those days are coming to an end. The CA/Browser Forum is set to make certificate renewals far more frequent than most organizations are used to.

By March 2029, the maximum lifespan of a publicly trusted TLS certificate will drop to just 47 days. That’s less than two months between issuance and expiration, forcing site owners, developers, and IT teams to completely rethink how they approach renewals.

This isn’t a small procedural update. It’s a shift that will alter certificate management from an occasional task into a continuous operational responsibility.

The Shift in TLS Lifespans

Historically, certificate lifetimes have steadily shrunk:

Currently, the longest a TLS certificate can remain valid is 398 days. This change was implemented in 2020 for more frequent key rotation to improve security.

Starting March 15, 2026, validity will shrink to 200 days. In March 2027, it drops again to 100 days, and finally, in March 2029, the maximum will be 47 days.

Effective Date	Max Validity	Domain/IP Validation Reuse
Before Mar 2026	398 days	398 days
Mar 2026	200 days	200 days
Mar 2027	100 days	100 days
Mar 2029	47 days	10 days

The rules also limit how long you can reuse validation data. Domain and IP validations, which confirm that you control the domain names listed on the certificate, will go from being reusable for 398 days to just 10 days by 2029. Organization validation data for OV and EV certificates will still last longer, but even that will need more careful scheduling to align with the new domain checks.

This is a new pace for certificate management which will multiply the number of renewals most organizations must complete each year.

How SSL Renewal Frequency Will Skyrocket

As of now, businesses typically renew each certificate once a year. With the upcoming changes, this math will change to two, four, or even eight times annually.

• 398 days → 1 renewal/year
• 200 days → ~2 renewals/year
• 100 days → ~4 renewals/year
• 47 days → 7–8 renewals/year

Every renewal still requires the same fundamental steps:

• Domain validation (email, DNS, or HTTP file-based methods).
• Certificate Signing Request (CSR) generation.
• Private key rotation (recommended for stronger security).
• Deployment across all infrastructure – origin servers, load balancers, CDN edges, and API gateways.

These processes don’t get any shorter just because the certificate lifespan did; they just happen far more often. For organizations with dozens or hundreds of certificates, this is a potential operational bottleneck.

Technical and Operational Challenges of Frequent Certificate Renewals

Manual renewal limitations

Even with a well-documented process, manual renewals take time — logging into CA dashboards, generating CSRs, validating domains, and replacing certs on servers. Repeating this every few weeks is impractical. In larger organizations the certs are spread across production servers, staging systems, APIs, and content delivery networks.

Risk of outages

Every renewal cycle introduces the risk of a missed deadline, leading to:

• Browser warnings such as “Your connection is not private”.
• Blocked payment gateways and APIs.
• SEO ranking drops due to loss of HTTPS status.

Validation complexity

• DV: Domain validation is quick but will need repeating more often.
• OV & EV: Organization details may still last 398 days, but the domain revalidation step will be more frequent.
• Certificates that fail validation will leave the site without encryption until reissued.

Impact on multi-domain and wildcard certificates

A single renewal delay can take down dozens of subdomains or services. Coordinating timing becomes critical.

Infrastructure dependencies

For sites on cloud or CDN platforms, renewal means syncing deployment across multiple endpoints, load balancers, or regional data centers. Any mismatch can break secure connections for certain visitors.

Why Automation Will Be Essential

By the time certificates last only 47 days, the traditional approach of logging into a certificate authority’s dashboard, generating a CSR, and manually replacing certificates will be unworkable.

Automation solves the two biggest problems of frequent renewals: timing and accuracy.

The ACME protocol (Automatic Certificate Management Environment) is one of the most widely adopted solutions, supported by both free and commercial certificate providers. It can request, validate, issue, and install certificates automatically — often without human intervention after initial setup.

For enterprises, Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) platforms go further by offering:

• Centralized visibility over all certificates in use.
• Automated tracking of expiration dates.
• Integration with web servers, load balancers and cloud services to be deployed instantly.
• Policy enforcement to assure that key lengths, algorithms, and other security settings are consistent with both internal and industry best practices.

Automation is the only sustainable way to maintain uninterrupted encryption when renewals happen every few weeks.

Strategies to Adapt Renewal Processes Without Disruption

Shorter lifespans don’t just require faster renewals; they require smarter renewal strategies. That means:

Renewal calendar planning

• Stagger renewal dates for certificates to avoid multiple expiries at once.
• Group low-priority certs into batch renewals while keeping critical services separate.

Private key rotation policy

• Rotate keys with each renewal to reduce risk from potential key compromise.

Testing in staging

• Deploy and test renewed certificates in non-production environments first, especially for high-traffic apps.

Failover readiness

• Keep backup certificates (with overlapping validity) for mission-critical services.
• Activate secondary endpoints, useful as a backup in the event of primary certificate failure.

Choosing the right vendor

• Pick CAs or resellers like CheapSSLShop offering affordable SSL certificates with multi-year subscription plans where the cert is reissued at each validity cycle without extra cost.

Business & Compliance Implications

While shorter lifespans are driven by security concerns they also carry business consequences.

Multi-year plans may keep certificate prices stable, but the operational cost rises as renewals become routine. Staff time, validation checks, and testing environments add up quickly when the cycle is only weeks long.

Standards like PCI DSS, HIPAA, and ISO 27001 require uninterrupted encryption. A missed renewal can lead to audit failures or service downtime, and with domain validation reuse dropping to 10 days by 2029, recovery windows will be much tighter.

Expired certificates trigger browser warnings, disrupt transactions, and erode credibility. With more renewals each year, the margin for error narrows.

Renewals will move from a scheduled task to part of daily operations, requiring clear ownership, better tracking, and faster incident response when something goes wrong.

Conclusion

The upcoming shift to shorter TLS lifespans is a clock that’s already ticking. In a few years, a 47-day certificate lifespan will be the norm. Now is the time to map out all the certificates in use, close the loopholes in monitoring and install automation to ensure timely renewals, every time. The quicker you adapt, the less risk there will be for a missed renewal for your site, your compliance or your reputation.

Related Article:

• How to Renew SSL Certificate Easily – Best Practices