- Google Ads API v20 sunset on June 10, 2026, per Google’s official sunset schedule, and its minor version v20.1 went with it. If your stack still calls v20, those requests are already returning errors.
- The failures are quiet. Bid scripts, Looker dashboards, CRM conversion uploads, and Merchant Center feeds stop working with no warning email. If something in your account broke around mid-June, an unmigrated API version is the first thing to check.
- Recovery is the same move as migration: confirm which version each tool calls, then upgrade to a supported version. Skip the dead ones and land on v24 or v25 for the longest runway.
- The next sunsets are already scheduled. v21 sunsets in August 2026 and v22 in October 2026, so a stack that only reached v21 or v22 is back on the clock. v23 through v25 buy you into 2027.
- Pin your client library to a specific API version and add a quarterly schema diff to CI. Google’s monthly release cadence makes version drift routine, not one-time work.
Most agencies do not realize their Google Ads tooling has a clock on it, and for anyone still on version 20 that clock has already run out. The Google Ads API sunset schedule for 2026 is the most aggressive Google has ever published, and version 20 reached the end of it on June 10, 2026. If your reporting, bidding scripts, or feed automation stopped behaving around then, an unmigrated API version is the most likely cause.
Version 19 set the pattern in February 2026. Every team that did not migrate in time saw requests fail with no warning. Version 20 followed on June 10, and version 21 is next in line. That is the same pattern we saw with the recent AI Max migration across Search, but it hits the technical layer instead of the campaign UI.
This playbook covers the rest of 2026 and into 2027. You will see what has already sunset, what breaks when a version does, the fastest way to recover if v20 already took your automation down, and the migration sequence that keeps you ahead of the next date.
What Happened on June 10, 2026, and What to Check Now
If your stack was still calling v20 or v20.1 on June 11, those requests started returning errors that day. Nothing announced it. The first sign is almost always downstream: a dashboard that stopped refreshing, a bid script that went quiet, or conversion uploads that silently stopped flowing.
If v20 already broke your automation, work the recovery in this order:
- Confirm the version. Open the Cloud Console and check which versions your project actually called in the last 30 days, using the steps below. Any traffic still on v20 or v20.1 is dead traffic.
- Read the error. A sunset request returns a clear version error, not a generic failure. If you see it in your logs, you have your answer.
- Upgrade to a supported version. Jump straight to v24 or v25. Do not stop at an intermediate version that is itself close to sunset.
- Backfill what you lost. Conversion uploads that failed during the outage may need to be re-sent, so Smart Bidding is not left optimizing against a partial dataset.
Sunset Is Not Deprecation: What Actually Happens at Cutover
Deprecation means your code still works while Google warns you. A sunset means requests return errors and never go through again. That distinction is the whole reason this is a planning event, not a backlog item, and it is why an unmigrated stack fails with no heads-up.
Here is the schedule through the rest of 2026 and into 2027, based on Google’s developer documentation and its published release calendar:
| Version | Sunset Date | Status |
|---|---|---|
| v19 | February 2026 | Retired |
| v20 | June 10, 2026 | Retired (v20.1 went with it) |
| v21 | August 2026 | Sunsetting now |
| v22 | October 2026 | Next up |
| v23 | February 2027 | Supported |
| v24 | May 2027 | Supported |
| v25 | August 2027 | Current (newest major) |
Google publishes these forward dates as estimates that can shift, as its move to a monthly release cadence makes clear, so treat the month shown as the outside edge and migrate before it. Each major version is supported for roughly 12 months from its release date. If your last upgrade was more than 10 months ago, you are already in the danger zone for the next date.
What a Missed Sunset Actually Breaks
The damage from a missed sunset is bigger than most teams expect. The Google Ads API powers more than custom dashboards.
If you run any of the following, you depend on the API:
- Bidding rules, automated budget pacing, or dayparting scripts
- Cross-account performance dashboards in Looker, Tableau, or Power BI
- Feed management, product data sync, or shopping inventory automation
- Conversion uploads from your CRM or call tracking platform, including any offline conversion tracking setup
- Third-party tools that connect to Google Ads, including Optmyzr, Adalysis, Smartly, and custom MCP servers
When a version sunsets, every one of those breaks at once. The dashboard stops refreshing. The bid script stops running. The conversion upload silently fails. You do not get a warning email from Google. You find out when your reports look wrong or your campaigns start spending against the wrong signal.
This is why you measure your real exposure first. Pull a list of every account, every script, every connector, and every internal tool that talks to the Google Ads API. Note the version each one calls. That is your migration scope, whether you are cleaning up after v20 or getting ahead of the next date.
How to Check Your Project’s API Version in Google Cloud Console
This is the first step whether you are recovering from the v20 cutover or getting ahead of the next one. Most teams skip it because they assume their dev shop already knows. They usually do not. Here is the path to confirm which API versions your project is calling.
- Open the Google Cloud Console and select the project tied to your Google Ads API access.
- Go to APIs and Services, then Enabled APIs and Services.
- Click Google Ads API in the list.
- Open the Metrics tab to see request volume by method and version.
- Cross-reference with your Quotas tab to confirm version-level traffic.
If you see traffic on v20 or v20.1 in the last 30 days, that is dead traffic to fix now. If you see v21, that is live exposure to the August 2026 sunset. Note every method that fires against those versions. That list becomes your migration checklist.
For teams running multiple projects or service accounts, repeat the check on each. It is common for a legacy script to live under an old project nobody touches, and that is the script that breaks first.
Why You Should Skip Straight to v24 or v25 (Not v23)
Google moved to a monthly release cadence in early 2026. That means more versions, faster, with smaller deltas between each. The good news is the sunset cycle does not force you to upgrade through every version. You can jump directly from a dead v20 to v24 or v25.
Pick your target for runway, not familiarity. v23 is still callable, but it sunsets in February 2027, so landing there now just puts you back on a short clock. v24 runs to May 2027, and v25, the newest major, runs to August 2027. If you are only going to do this once, upgrade to v25.
The most recent major releases brought support for cart data in conversion reporting, lead generation conversion types, gender exclusions for Performance Max, and updated audience definition tools. Several also tightened required fields on video ad objects, which is the kind of change that breaks existing code if you skip the release notes. Upgrading to the newest version also lines up your stack with the same audience and conversion features Google is pushing across Google Ads vs Meta campaigns this year.
Sunset Risk Priority by Tool Type
Different parts of your stack carry different risk. Here is the priority order we use when we audit a client account, and the same order applies when you triage a recovery.
Bidding and budget automation: highest risk. If your bid script breaks for two days, you can lose thousands per account in wasted spend or missed opportunity. These scripts run silently. Failures are not always visible. Tight paid media management keeps these automations monitored so a silent failure surfaces fast.
Conversion uploads: high risk and high invisibility. If your offline conversions stop flowing, Smart Bidding starts optimizing on the wrong signal. By the time you notice, your CPA has already drifted and your revenue-based attribution model is reporting against a partial dataset.
Reporting and dashboards: high risk. A broken dashboard blocks decisions. Clients lose trust fast when reporting goes dark for a week, and your ROAS story falls apart the moment the data stops moving.
Feed and inventory sync: medium risk for most. Higher for retail and ecommerce. A broken feed pushes outdated prices, missing products, or wrong availability into your shopping campaigns.
Read-only integrations: lower risk. They do not move money, but they still need to be migrated. A broken read-only call still produces broken outputs downstream, and downstream is where your revenue tracking lives.
The Migration Sequence That Still Applies
Whether you are cleaning up after the v20 cutover or getting ahead of the next date, the sequence is the same. If you have more than 30 days before your current version’s sunset, run the full version.
Week 1: scope. Pull every Google Ads API call your team makes using the Cloud Console steps above. Document the script, the version, the owner, and the business risk.
Weeks 2 to 3: pilot. Pick one low-risk script and migrate it to v24 or v25. Update the client library. Run the new and old versions side by side for a full reporting cycle. Compare outputs. Document every schema change.
Weeks 4 to 6: migrate. Move the rest of your scripts in priority order. Bidding first, then conversion uploads, then dashboards, then feeds. Test each one before promoting to production. This is where good marketing automation habits pay off, because automated regression checks save you days.
Weeks 7 to 8: harden. Pin your client library to a specific API version. Do not rely on the default. Set up monitoring that alerts you when a request returns a deprecation warning. Add a quarterly schema diff check to your CI pipeline.
That last step is what separates teams that get caught flat-footed from teams that stay ahead. The monthly release cadence means new fields appear every four weeks. If you are not watching for them, you miss new metrics, audience tools, and bidding signals.
Racing a Tight Deadline: The Compressed Plan
If v20 already broke your automation, or your stack only reached v21 and the August 2026 date is on top of you, the standard plan is too slow. Here is the compressed sequence we run for stacks with less than 30 days on the clock, or none.
Days 1 to 2: scope and triage. Pull your Cloud Console version data. Sort every script by business risk, not by complexity. The goal is to identify what cannot break, not what is easiest to fix.
Days 3 to 10: migrate the highest-risk scripts. Bidding automation and conversion uploads first. These are the systems that lose money silently. Skip the side-by-side comparison cycle if you have to. Run the new version in a sandbox account for 48 hours, confirm the schema, then ship.
Days 11 to 20: migrate everything else. Dashboards, feeds, read-only integrations. Use a single client library upgrade to cover as many scripts as possible.
Days 21 to 28: validate and monitor. Confirm every migrated script is calling v24 or v25. Set up a basic alerting layer that pings you on any 4xx or 5xx response from the API. You can build a fancier monitoring system once the immediate risk is clear.
Days 29 to 30: freeze and document. Stop pushing changes. Document what you migrated, what you skipped, and what needs cleanup after the cutover.
This plan is not pretty, but it works. The teams that survive a tight sunset window are the ones that ruthlessly prioritize and ship in order of business risk.
The Strategic Cost of Treating This as Maintenance
Most teams treat the Google Ads API sunset as engineering maintenance. That is the wrong frame.
Every sunset is also an opportunity. Recent versions unlocked cart data sales reporting, Performance Max audience definition tools, and AI Max for Search controls in the API. Teams that migrate proactively get those features early. Teams that migrate reactively spend their cycle catching up, and this year they will spend it twice, because v21 and v22 sunset within months of v20.
The same pattern shows up in paid media performance. Agencies that wait until the deadline ship rushed code, miss new fields, and lose ground to competitors who treated migration as a strategic project. The teams we work with use these moments to lower cost per acquisition by tightening their data layer first, then activating new bidding signals.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did Google Ads API v20 sunset?
June 10, 2026. Google’s official sunset schedule listed the date as confirmed, replacing earlier “June 2026 (tentative)” language. Requests to v20 or v20.1 have returned errors since that day.
My scripts broke in mid-June. Could the v20 sunset be why?
Yes. If your tooling was still calling v20 or v20.1 on June 11, 2026, those requests started failing that day with no warning email. Check your Cloud Console version traffic first, then upgrade to a supported version and re-send any conversion uploads that failed during the outage so Smart Bidding is not optimizing on a partial dataset.
Do I have to upgrade through every version between v20 and v25?
No. You can jump directly from v20 to v24 or v25. Landing on the newest version gives you the longest runway before the next sunset and unlocks the newest features in one pass.
Which version should I upgrade to now?
v24 or v25. v23 is still supported but sunsets in February 2027, so it just resets a short clock. v24 runs to May 2027, and v25, the newest major, runs to August 2027.
When are the next Google Ads API sunsets?
Google’s published schedule has v21 sunsetting in August 2026 and v22 in October 2026, with v23 through v25 running into 2027. Google labels these forward dates as estimates that can shift, so treat the month shown as the outside edge and migrate before it.
How do I know which API version my tools are using?
Open Google Cloud Console, navigate to APIs and Services, select Google Ads API, and check the Metrics tab. Any traffic on a sunset version is what you need to fix.
Can third-party tools like Optmyzr or Adalysis handle this for me?
They will migrate their own connectors, but any custom scripts or in-house dashboards you built are your responsibility. Confirm with each vendor in writing before assuming you are covered.
Your Next Move
If your stack still calls v20, it is not counting down anymore, it is already down. Start with the Cloud Console check, confirm what is calling a dead version, and upgrade to v24 or v25. Then get ahead of the next date: v21 sunsets in August 2026 and v22 in October 2026.
Start with the Cloud Console check. Then pick one script. Then build the pattern. The teams that come out ahead this year will be the ones that turned this into a system, not a fire drill.
If you want help building the migration playbook for your accounts, the Elevarus team runs this exact process for agencies and in-house teams every quarter. Schedule a free consultation and we will map your sunset exposure together.
