Does VirtueMart Work on Joomla 6? Status for VirtueMart 4.8 and 5

Short version: VirtueMart 4 – no. VirtueMart 5 – yes, but it is still in beta. This page tracks the status and is updated as VirtueMart releases.

Current status

Why VirtueMart 4 can't simply run on Joomla 6

When VirtueMart 4.6.0 came out in September 2025, the team stated it does not work on Joomla 6 and that a new VirtueMart 5 would follow "to match all the changes". Their stated aim for VirtueMart 5 is a namespaced code base that runs without Joomla's legacy compatibility plugin, on Joomla 3 up to 6.

What changes in VirtueMart 5

From the VirtueMart team's own announcements:

• Namespaced code, without relying on Joomla's backward-compatibility layer.
• Less jQuery. The plan is to replace VirtueMart's core jQuery code with plain JavaScript. The old "chosen" dropdowns are replaced by "choices", which works without jQuery and is what Joomla 6 uses.
• More static functions for performance – for example the media handler. Templates are not affected, but more complex extensions that call these functions may need small updates.

For shop owners, that means: VirtueMart itself will be ready before some of your add-ons are. Payment gateways, one-page checkouts and feed tools are the ones to watch.

When to move a live shop to Joomla 6

1. VirtueMart 5 has a stable release.
2. Every payment and shipping plugin you use has a version for VirtueMart 5 and Joomla 6.
3. Your template and overrides have been tested with VirtueMart 5 on a staging copy.
4. Test orders pass on staging with every payment method.

Until all four are true: stay on Joomla 5.4 and VirtueMart 4.8.x – it is supported and gets security fixes until October 2027. Use the time to test VirtueMart 5 beta on a copy.

How we keep this current

We follow every VirtueMart release and check it on a Joomla test shop. The latest release and our notes are on the VirtueMart Joomla 6 upgrade page, under Release watch. When VirtueMart 5 goes stable, this page will say so.

Why it's a rewrite, not a patch

The reason is visible in the code. In VirtueMart 4.6 (component and bundled plugins), we counted the old Joomla class names: JFactory 1,277 times, JHtml 429, JRoute 376, JText 219, JFile/JFolder 178. That's 333 of 624 PHP files. Joomla 6 removed those names from core; they now load only through the compatibility plugin, and the Joomla 7 branch installs that plugin disabled. A namespaced VirtueMart 5 isn't a nice-to-have, it's the only way forward.

For add-on developers the same check applies to your own code. Anything that runs inside VirtueMart 5 on Joomla 6 should pass:

# terminal – in your VirtueMart plugin or add-on
grep -rnoE "\bJ(Factory|Html|Route|Text|File|Folder|Table|Request|PluginHelper)\b" --include=*.php . | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head
grep -rnE "jQuery|\$\(" --include=*.js --include=*.php . | head    # VirtueMart 5 is moving off jQuery