Google Play Billing Library version requirement: what you need to ship now

Google gives every Play Billing Library version a two-year deprecation cycle, announced at Google I/O 2019. Once a version passes its deadline, you cannot publish a new app or an update that uses it. Apps already on the store keep working: Google says unmaintained APKs do not need updates, but the next update you send has to use a supported version. That is why a missed deadline usually surfaces the day you try to ship a bug fix.

Check the billing dependency in your build.gradle file. The requirement only concerns APKs that use the com.android.vending.BILLING permission. If you already upgraded and Play Console still shows a deprecation warning, open the merged AndroidManifest.xml and look for com.google.android.play.billingclient.version: Google says a missing attribute usually means manifest merging removed it. SDKs that bundle their own billing client, such as purchase or subscription libraries, need to be on a release that ships a supported version too.

PBL 8 removes APIs that were deprecated earlier, so an upgrade from 6 or 7 needs code changes, not just a new version number. querySkuDetailsAsync is gone, use queryProductDetailsAsync; the queryPurchaseHistory APIs are removed; enablePendingPurchases() without parameters is replaced by the version that takes PendingPurchasesParams; and the old alternative billing classes are replaced by their user choice billing equivalents. The onProductDetailsResponse listener also changed signature, because products that could not be fetched now come back with a status code instead of silently missing. Coming from version 6, you also replace the subscription setters PBL 8 removed: setOldSkuPurchaseToken becomes setOldPurchaseToken, and setReplaceProrationMode and setReplaceSkusProrationMode become setSubscriptionReplacementMode.

Version 9.0.0 was released on May 19, 2026 and is accepted until August 31, 2028, a year longer than version 8. It changes the response code when the Play Store is blocked by the system from ERROR to BILLING_UNAVAILABLE, makes DeveloperProvidedBillingDetails.getLinkUri() nullable, and adds in-app messages for opt-in price increases. Google publishes a separate migration guide for version 9. If you are rewriting the billing code for version 8 anyway, doing it once for 9 saves the next forced upgrade.

Apps that use an unsupported version get a warning in Play Console. On the Policy status page, open the warning’s details to find the extension form; an approved extension lets you keep shipping updates on the old version until November 1. Use that time to upgrade, test purchases and subscriptions end to end with license testers, and publish the new build before the extension runs out.

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