GlobalSign to Enforce 199-Day SSL Certificate Validity from March 2026

GlobalSign announced a major update to SSL/TLS certificate lifecycles last year, and the effective date is now approaching. Starting March 14, 2026, the maximum validity period for publicly trusted SSL/TLS certificates will be reduced to 199 days, in alignment with the CA/Browser (CA/B) Forum's industry-wide requirements.

What's Changing

From March 14, 2026:

SSL/TLS certificates issued on or after this date will be valid for no more than 199 days

Domain Control Validation (DCV) reuse will be limited to 200 days

The corresponding CA/B Forum mandate officially takes effect on March 15, 2026, marking the first step in a multi-year plan to further shorten certificate lifecycles.

Why This Matters

Shorter certificate lifetimes are designed to:

• • Reduce the risk exposure of compromised certificates
  • Accelerate adoption of stronger cryptography and security updates
  • Encourage automation, as more frequent renewals increase operational workload

GlobalSign, along with other major CAs such as DigiCert and Sectigo, is aligning its issuance policies to comply with these updated baseline requirements.

What This Means for Organizations

Compared to the current ~398-day validity, a 199-day limit effectively doubles renewal frequency. Managing certificates manually will become increasingly challenging, especially for organizations operating large or complex environments.

Preparing for Shorter Certificate Lifecycles

If certificate renewals, deployments, and monitoring are already a pain point, now is the right time to consider automation.

sslTrus CLM is NicSRS's Certificate Lifecycle Management platform, designed to help organizations centrally manage certificates across multiple public CAs and private CAs. It enables automated issuance, renewal, replacement, monitoring, and deployment across cloud platforms, Kubernetes, WAF, CDN, SSH, and CI/CD environments — reducing manual effort and minimizing outage risks.

Final Thoughts

The move to 199-day SSL certificates is not just a policy change, but a clear signal that manual certificate management is no longer sustainable. As certificate lifecycles continue to shorten toward 2029, adopting automated lifecycle management will be essential to maintain security, compliance, and service continuity.

If you're facing certificate management challenges or want to prepare for the upcoming changes, feel free to contact us to learn more about sslTrus CLM.