March 2026 CU for SharePoint Server 2016 is available for download

Important: If your current farm patch level is September 2025 CU, remove the NT Authority\system account from WSS_WPG and IIS_IUSRS local security groups of the SharePoint machines – otherwise installing the SharePoint fixes will fail.

For more details check this article: Trending Issue: SharePoint fixes fail to install after installation of September 2025 CU

The product group released the March 2026 Cumulative Update for SharePoint Server 2016 product family.

This CU also includes Feature Pack 1 which was released with December 2016 CU and Feature Pack 2 which was released with September 2017 CU.

The KB articles for March 2026 CU should be available at the following locations in a couple of hours:

  • KB 5002850 – March 2026 Update for SharePoint Server 2016 (language independent)
    This is also a security update!
  • KB 5002851 – March 2026 Update for SharePoint Server 2016 (language dependent)
    This is also a security update!

The downloads for March 2026 CU are available through the following links:

Important: It is required to install both fixes (language dependent and independent) to fully patch a SharePoint server. This applies also to servers which do not have language packs installed. The reason is that each SharePoint installation includes a language dependent component together with a language independent component. If additional language packs are added later (only) the language dependent fix has to be applied again.

It is irrelevant which language you pick on the drop down in download center. Even the language dependent fixes are all in the same package for all languages.

After installing the fixes you need to run the SharePoint 2016 Products Configuration Wizard on each machine in the farm. If you prefer to run the command line version psconfig.exe ensure to have a look here for the correct options.

 
SharePoint 2016 March 2026 CU Build Numbers:

Language independent fix: 16.0.5543.1000
Language dependent fix: 16.0.5543.1000

 
To understand the different version numbers please have a look at my article which explains the different SharePoint build numbers.

Please ensure to have a look at the SharePoint Patching Best Practices before applying new fixes.

Related Links:

4 Comments


  1. Should we treat this CU as a Critical one or as a High? There is a difference between MS (critical) and CVE (high)

    Reply

  2. It says If you’re currently running the Classic version of Workflow Manager, you have to enable the debug flag in order to continue using it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​:
    ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
    Does this mean we can stay on workflow manager 1.0 (or I assume this means the classic) and not upgrade the workflow manager?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.