React Router v9

[brophdawg11]

React Router v8 was released in June 2026. This discussion will be used to track changes planned for v9. This is estimated to be released sometime mid-2027, after Node 22 goes EOL.

There are a few principles from our Design Goals worth mentioning here as we plan for our next major version:

• Less is More. React Router has gained a lot of functionality in the past years, but with that comes a bunch of new API surface. It's time to hone in on the core functionality and aim to reduce API surface without sacrificing capabilities. This may come in multiple forms, such as condensing a few existing APIs into a singular API, or deprecating current APIs in favor of a new React API.
• Simple Migration Paths. Major version upgrades don't have to stink. Breaking changes should be implemented behind future flags. Deprecations should be properly marked ahead of time in code and in documentation. Console warnings should be added prior to major releases to nudge developers towards the changes they can begin to make to prep for the upgrade.
• Regular Release Cadence. Aim for major SemVer releases on a ~yearly basis so application developers can prepare in advance.

We have released a lot and have a few future flags already stabilized or can be soon. This is a good spot to take stock of future flags we have in progress, what deprecations we've introduced or still need, and draw a line in the sand for any future breaking changes we're considering.

Note

Threads will be created for anything proposed that needs to be discussed further. This top level summary will be kept up to date with all decisions that have been made.

Please open a thread (if one does not exist) if you have questions or comments on anything below, or if you have another feature, deprecation, or change you would like to be considered.

• ✅: Accepted and code complete
• 🔜: Accepted but code incomplete (generally unstable_)
• 🤔: Waiting for feedback from the community and votes from Steering Committee
• ❌: Considered but not appropriate for v9

Future Flags

• 🤔 unstable_enableNodeReadableStream - Use runtime-specific default server entries #15290

New APIs

• 🔜 Stabilize useRoute - Consolidate route data access with new type-safe hook: useRoute #14418
• 🔜 Stabilize useRouterState - Consolidate Router State Access #13073
  • This would allow us to consider deprecating some existing hooks if we feel that was worth doing to trim down the API and was done early enough in v8 to give folks time to migrate before v9

Deprecations

• 🔜 Node 24.x minimum supported version (Node 22 is EOL ~May 2027)
• 🤔 Determine if minimum React version should be bumped
• 🤔 Determine if minimum Vite version should be bumped
• 🤔 Remove react-router reveal --no-typescript flag
• 🤔 Deprecate View Transition APIs in favor of React's ViewTransition component if it lands in a stable

Nice to Haves

These are non-breaking changes features that are marked as unstable or have not been started. Given that they are features, they can be added in future minor versions. However, for the sake of simplicity, shipping major versions with little to no dangling unstable_ features makes for a clean story and clear starting point for both end users and contributors.

n/a

Rejected Changes

n/a

[brophdawg11]

We plan to remove the react-router reveal --no-typescript flag in v9. That's leftover from the days when create-remix used to have a JS/TS prompt. We dropped that in v7 IIRC and just forgot to also remove the corresponding reveal choice. TS is the default and if folks really want to drop TS it's easy enough to do it after the reveal command.

[brophdawg11]

We will plan to deprecate View Transition APIs in favor of React's ViewTransition component if it lands in a stable release before v9 is released.

[RichardLindhout]

What about prefetch modes like Tanstack Router has which work in SPA instead only on SSR?

[brophdawg11]

There's an open RFC accepting PRs for that, so if we get to it or if we get a community contribution then I think that has a good chance of making it in: #12375

[phung-justin]

Is the plan to deprecate the Declarative mode entirely further down the line?

I only ask because in the change logs for useRouterState it mentions that it is only available for Data/Framework/RSC only and that the consolidated hooks (useLocation, useSearchParams, useParams, useMatches, useNavigationType, useNavigation) will likely be deprecated and removed in a future major version.

[brophdawg11]

If we did deprecate them, we'd make useRouterState work in declarative mode or provide a declarative mode variant.

[ryanleichty]

This probably goes against the less is more mantra for the next version, but what about adding an optional first-party client-side cache for loader data. I know this has been discussed before, and I am still fairly new to React Router, so I may be missing some of the historical reasons for not adding it. But I have been using the common React Router + TanStack Query pattern, where the router handles navigation and loaders, while React Query handles caching, stale times, and revalidation.

Figured I might as well still ask! Caching is not my expertise.