Why Microsoft Is Phasing Out Visual Basic and What It Means for .NET Developers

Visual Basic, an event‑driven language developed by Microsoft and derived from BASIC, will no longer receive new features starting with .NET 5; the language will focus solely on stability and compatibility.

Microsoft’s DevBlogs confirmed that from .NET 5 onward, VB will support class libraries, console applications, Windows Forms, WPF, Worker Services, and ASP.NET Core Web API, giving existing customers a migration path to .NET Core.

The announcement emphasizes that future effort will not be spent on evolving the language itself.

In practice, Microsoft has effectively abandoned VB: while VB .NET was released alongside C# in the .NET era, professional developers increasingly prefer C#, and most Microsoft documentation now provides examples only in C#. The joint development strategy announced in 2017 has long since faded.

For developers who continue to use VB, the recommendation is to upgrade existing codebases to .NET Core as soon as possible, since .NET 5 and later will usher in a new era where many older technologies lose support.

Developers relying on WebForms, Workflow, or WCF can still use the classic .NET framework, which will remain supported until the corresponding Windows OS versions are retired.

Microsoft also notes that VB developers will benefit from ongoing Visual Studio improvements, such as the recent addition of IntelliCode support for VB.