GPT-5.5 Retirement Explained: Effective October 14, 2026, and Narrower Than Announced

OpenAI's GPT-5.5 retirement took effect at noon PDT on October 14, 2026 (19:00 UTC). What it covers got smaller on the day. OpenAI announced in September that GPT-5.5 would retire "from ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex on all plans"; the notice it published on October 14 is titled "GPT-5.5 retirement in Codex" and says GPT-5.5 "retires from Codex for users signed in with ChatGPT." Every current page in OpenAI's documentation now says it that narrower way. For ordinary ChatGPT use, there is nothing for you to do -- and there is now less to it than the original announcement suggested.

Key Takeaways

• It is done, and the time was noon PDT (19:00 UTC) on October 14, 2026. OpenAI's changelog entry for that day states it exactly. OpenAI's docs still phrase it as "Effective October 14 ... GPT-5.5 retires", present tense, and had not been rewritten to the past tense when we read them at 19:17 UTC.
• OpenAI narrowed what retired. The September 14 changelog entry is still posted and still reads "GPT-5.5 will retire from ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex on all plans, including consumer, Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans." The October 14 entry, the Models page, the pricing page and the workspace model availability page all now name only Codex with ChatGPT sign-in.
• What OpenAI has not said is whether GPT-5.5 is still in the ChatGPT model picker. No OpenAI page says it stays, and none dated October 14 says it goes. If you are one of the few people who chose GPT-5.5 by hand in chat, open your own model menu -- that is the only reliable answer available.
• The replacement is GPT-6.1 Sol, and that is the third name. OpenAI now says: on "Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans, choose GPT-6.1 Sol (gpt-6.1-sol) when available", and on "Free and Go plans, choose GPT-6 Luna (gpt-6-luna) in the desktop app". September 14 said GPT-5.6 Sol; late September said GPT-6 Sol. See GPT-6.1 Sol explained.
• Developers keep GPT-5.5. Verbatim: it "remains available through the OpenAI API and in Codex sessions authenticated with an API key." The split is the sign-in method, not the product.
• Your chats are safe. OpenAI has not described what happens to old GPT-5.5 conversations. Its own precedent is that nothing is deleted: GPT-4.5 conversations "can continue with GPT-5.5", and retired GPT-5.2 chats "automatically continue on the corresponding GPT-5.5 model".
• Ordinary chat moved past GPT-5.5 twice before any of this. ChatGPT stopped defaulting to it when GPT-5.6 shipped, and since October 7, 2026 GPT-6 powers the Chat tab on paid plans.

What Changed on the Day

The retirement scope shrank, in OpenAI's own words, and both versions are still readable because its changelog is dated and append-only. Here is the same event as OpenAI described it a month apart.

Treat the narrowing as a narrowing, not as a reprieve. A vendor that stops repeating a broader claim has not stated the narrower one, and OpenAI has published no sentence saying GPT-5.5 remains selectable in consumer ChatGPT. The surface that would normally answer it is the ChatGPT release notes, which is where every past consumer retirement was recorded -- "As of June 26, 2026, GPT-4.5 is no longer available in ChatGPT", "As of June 12, 2026, GPT-5.2 models are no longer available in ChatGPT". That page has blocked us since October 4, 2026 and the newest copy we can read is from October 10, which carries no GPT-5.5 retirement entry at all. Four days before the event, so it proves nothing about it.

Who Is Affected

Almost nobody, and that was true before the scope narrowed. Here is where GPT-5.5 sits for each kind of user, from OpenAI's own pages read on October 14, 2026.

The fourth row is the only one with a confirmed loss, and it is a developer-tooling row. If you have never signed into Codex, none of this reaches you.

What Happens to Your Old GPT-5.5 Conversations

OpenAI has not said, for this retirement. Neither the October 14 entry, the Models page, nor the workspace model availability page describes what happens to a conversation that was running on GPT-5.5. We checked all three on October 14, 2026.

What OpenAI did the last three times is on the record, and it never deleted anything. When GPT-4.5 left ChatGPT on June 26, 2026, the ChatGPT release notes said: "Existing conversations that used GPT-4.5 can continue with GPT-5.5." When GPT-5.2 left on June 12, 2026: "Existing conversations that used GPT-5.2 will automatically continue on the corresponding GPT-5.5 model." And when it retired GPT-4o and several others in February 2026, its retirement help article said: "Conversations and projects are defaulted to their GPT-5.3 Instant and GPT-5.4 Thinking and Pro equivalents going forward."

The same document states OpenAI's general rule, which is the closest thing to a promise on offer: "Models will generally remain available in ChatGPT for 90 days after a successor is released." Treat all of it as what OpenAI did before rather than what it has committed to now.

Does It Affect ChatGPT Voice?

Not in a way you need to act on. When OpenAI launched GPT-Live, the voice model behind ChatGPT Voice, it used GPT-5.5 as the model it handed harder questions to. OpenAI's ChatGPT release notes say that since September 9, 2026, ChatGPT Voice "can now use GPT-5.6 or GPT-6 Astra" for that job. Voice had moved on a month before the retirement date.

Why the Replacement Name Keeps Moving

Because OpenAI shipped three models into the same slot in four weeks, and it has updated the migration instruction each time rather than issuing a new notice. The sequence, all from OpenAI's own pages:

GPT-6.1 Sol shipped on September 29, 2026 for ChatGPT Work and Codex, and OpenAI's help centre says models in that family "are not available in regular ChatGPT conversations." That it is now the named replacement fits the narrowed scope: a Codex retirement, pointed at a Codex model. The Free and Go instruction has not moved -- GPT-6 Luna in the desktop app.

Should You Do Anything

Do nothing if you use ChatGPT by typing into it. Your chat model was not GPT-5.5 before today and OpenAI has described no change to chat.

Check your menu if you deliberately picked GPT-5.5 in chat because you preferred how it answered. We cannot tell you from OpenAI's documentation whether it is still offered, and OpenAI's current notice does not cover that case. Looking takes five seconds and beats any source we can cite.

Update your settings if you use Codex with your ChatGPT account. This is the one confirmed break. OpenAI says to replace gpt-5.5 in "workspace defaults, saved model settings, managed configurations, custom agents, scheduled tasks, and scripts that select a model", with gpt-6.1-sol on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu, or gpt-6-luna in the desktop app on Free and Go.

Do not pay for a higher plan because of this. No plan keeps GPT-5.5 in Codex, and the plans that got a replacement named for them are the ones you may already have. If you are weighing a subscription for other reasons, see whether ChatGPT Plus is worth it and the best free AI chatbot in 2026.

Corrections and Updates

October 14, 2026: this page said GPT-5.5 would retire from ChatGPT on every plan and that the named replacement was GPT-6 Sol. OpenAI narrowed both on the day the retirement took effect: its October 14 changelog entry, Models page, pricing page and workspace model availability page all scope it to "Codex for users signed in with ChatGPT" and name GPT-6.1 Sol as the paid-plan replacement. The title, summary, every Key Takeaway, all six FAQ answers and the affected-users table now say so; the September 14 notice's broader wording is still posted on OpenAI's changelog and is quoted above rather than removed. Whether GPT-5.5 remains in the consumer chat picker is unconfirmed on every OpenAI surface we can read.

October 10, 2026: this page said free ChatGPT's move to GPT-6 Luna was announced and not confirmed on OpenAI's help centre. One help-centre page now confirms it. OpenAI's ChatGPT release notes, read October 10 and unreadable to us since October 4, carry an October 7 entry stating "Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise use GPT-6 Sol; Free and Go use GPT-6 Luna." The per-plan article is still unchanged in its newest readable capture, October 8, 2026 at 19:21 GMT. See GPT-6 and Intelligent UI.

October 8, 2026: this page said GPT-6 Luna reached Free and Go in chat on October 8. That is announced, not confirmed: OpenAI's help article, re-read October 8, says GPT-6 in Chat is rolling out "to eligible Pro, Plus, Enterprise, and Business users" and that "Free and Go users receive GPT-5.6 Luna". The mention has been softened; nothing else on this page is affected.

October 7, 2026: this page said GPT-6 Sol and Luna were "not available in regular ChatGPT conversations" and that the chat default was still GPT-5.6. OpenAI's October 7 announcement put GPT-6 Sol into the Chat tab for Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise that day and GPT-6 Luna for Free and Go from October 8, so both halves were wrong; the summary and the two affected Key Takeaways now say so.

September 26, 2026: this page said "the named replacement is GPT-5.6 Sol," quoting OpenAI's September 14 notice. OpenAI has since rewritten that guidance twice on its Models page, to GPT-6 Sol in late September and to GPT-6.1 Sol on October 14. Nothing about the retirement date or the plans affected changed in that edit.