Business Central 2026 release wave 1 (version 28.0) arrived in April, but Microsoft did not stop there. Five minor updates shipped before version 29 took over in October: 28.1 in May, 28.2 in June, 28.3 in July, 28.4 in August, and 28.5 in September. Minor updates used to be mostly hotfixes, but Microsoft now delivers new features throughout the wave, and some of the biggest additions this wave landed after 28.0.
This post summarizes the changes across all five updates so you do not have to read five separate release notes. For the April release itself, see What’s New in Business Central 2026 Wave 1.
Update 28.1 (May 2026)
Expense Agent and Expense Management (preview)
The headline feature in 28.1 is the new Expense Agent, an AI agent that handles the expense process from receipt to reimbursement. Employees upload receipts and submit expense reports through a web app or by email. The agent extracts the key details, detects duplicate submissions, and generates expense reports automatically.
Alongside the agent, Business Central gets a new Expense Management module with expense report management, itemization, per diem, mileage tracking, approval workflows, and reimbursement posting. Both are in public preview.
Other changes in 28.1
- Audit user and group permissions across apps: A permission auditing capability for administrators, now generally available.
- Troubleshooting MCP Server for AL: Developers can connect AI clients to a troubleshooting server for AL diagnostics.
- Validate Dynamics GP data migration: The cloud migration tooling can now validate migrated GP data.
- Agent designer on production environments: The preview for designing custom AI agents now runs on production environments and includes an evaluation tool.
- Faster deferral and trial balance reports: The performance-focused report rewrites announced for the wave reached general availability.
- New audit APIs: APIs for analyzing approval workflows and permissions, aimed at auditors and IT staff.
- Excise taxes and Investment Boost for fixed assets: Both tax features moved to general availability.
- E-invoice formats for service invoices in Germany: Generally available.
Update 28.2 (June 2026)
Sales Order Agent improvements
The Sales Order Agent became available in Belgium and Switzerland. To support multilingual environments, administrators get a new text search language setting that helps the agent find items accurately regardless of the data language.
The agent also handles email more cleanly. It now detects and skips inline attachments such as signature logos, tracking pixels, and embedded images, so it only processes real order documents like PDFs and spreadsheets. This also reduces the number of credits the agent consumes.
Quality management additions
The quality management feature from 28.0 received two practical additions:
- The three printable reports (Certificate of Analysis, Non-Conformance, and General Purpose Inspection) now ship with Word layouts as the default, with RDLC layouts as an alternative. Default assignments are managed on the Report Selection - Quality Management page.
- The Quality Management Setup page includes an Install Demo Data action that installs the Contoso Coffee Demo Dataset from AppSource. Demo data installation is also the first step in the Quality Manager Role Center checklist.
Other changes in 28.2
- Payments with the E-Document framework (preview): Handle payment information as part of the e-document flow. This reached general availability in 28.4.
- Withholding taxes for vendors: Generally available.
- Self-billed invoices: Generally available.
- Accelerated depreciation methods for fixed assets (preview): New depreciation options beyond the standard methods.
- Reimplementation projects with the cloud migration tool (preview): Use the migration tooling for reimplementation scenarios, not just lift-and-shift migrations.
- PDF document report API: A new API returns the PDF of a document report, useful for integrations that need rendered documents.
- Sustainability APIs: New APIs for integrating sustainability data with external systems.
- Regulatory features: Australian Payment Times Reporting and UK Payment Practices reached general availability. Electronic invoicing for France entered public preview.
AI model selection for agents (preview)
Starting with 28.2, agents in Business Central can run on different AI models, and you can choose which model an agent uses. Each agent can use a specific model or rely on automatic selection. Microsoft also documented the Evaluation framework for testing Copilot and agent behavior.
Update 28.3 (July 2026)
Agents mature further
- Multiple Sales Order Agents per company: You can now run more than one Sales Order Agent in the same company, with smarter item matching, relevance filtering, and a simpler setup. Generally available.
- Payables Agent free trial: A trial mode lets you process 50 invoices free of charge, started directly from the assisted setup guide without configuring an email inbox.
- Expense Agent updates: The agent now supports German, Danish, French, and Spanish. With project tracking enabled, users can assign a project and project task on the Categorization tab when creating or editing an expense.
A dedicated Expense Agent mobile app for iOS and Android is expected in the app stores during July 2026.
Other changes in 28.3
- Electronic invoicing in France: Now generally available, ahead of the French e-invoicing mandate.
- Subcontracting in production: Subcontracting capabilities for production processes reached general availability, a significant addition for manufacturing companies that outsource operations.
- Shopify B2B on more plans: Market catalogs, payment terms, and B2B order processing now work on all Shopify plans, not just Shopify Plus.
- Plastic and sugar taxes: The new tax calculations moved from preview to general availability.
- PTE management in the admin center: Administrators can upload, install, and manage per-tenant extensions directly in the Business Central admin center. This is a service feature, so it works independently of your update version.
Localization updates in 28.3
| Country | Change |
|---|---|
| Germany | Intrastat XML export updated for the latest eSTATISTIK.CORE requirements |
| Mexico | Fixed a “Date is out of range” validation error in CFDI payment documents |
| Switzerland | Support for the new bank clearing number CSV format (v3.0) and structured addresses for QR invoices |
| United Kingdom | Payment Practices reporting updated for current UK requirements |
Update 28.4 (August 2026)
A smaller update, focused on the Payables Agent and electronic documents.
- Known Senders in Payables Agent (generally available): The agent recognizes senders it has already processed and handles their documents faster.
- Payments with the E-Document framework (generally available): The preview from 28.2 is now a finished feature.
- Purchase draft page previews Peppol electronic invoices (preview): Review an incoming Peppol invoice on the purchase draft page before you convert it to a document.
Field Service synchronization change
Business Central now respects the Dataverse Convert to Customer Asset setting when it synchronizes service items with Dynamics 365 Field Service. New uncoupled service items create customer asset records only when Convert to Customer Asset is set to Yes. Service items that are already coupled to customer assets keep synchronizing as before, so existing integrations are unaffected.
If you run the Field Service integration, check the setting on your Field Service products before the update. Items that previously synchronized as customer assets will stop doing so if the product is set to No.
No localization updates shipped in 28.4.
Update 28.5 (September 2026)
The last minor update of the wave, released alongside the public preview of version 29.
- AI resources for your Copilot extensions (generally available): AL developers can use Business Central’s own AI resources in custom Copilot features rather than bringing their own Azure OpenAI deployment. For background on building extensions, see Your First Business Central Extension.
- Embedded Verifactu mode in Spain (generally available): Support for the Spanish Verifactu invoicing requirements.
No localization updates shipped in 28.5.
Release plans replaced by the AI at Work roadmap
Starting in September 2026, Microsoft stopped publishing release plans. New Business Central capabilities go to the AI at Work roadmap instead. The existing release plan pages stay online for historical reference, so links in older posts and notes still work, but there is no release plan page for wave 2 or later.
Copilot Data Movement Across Geographies
Starting July 1, 2026, environments on version 28.0 or later in some countries may process Copilot and agent requests in a different Azure geography. If this matters for your compliance requirements, review the settings on the Copilot & agent capabilities page before your users rely on agent features.
Upgrade Notes
Online customers receive minor updates automatically and can schedule them in the admin center within the update window. On-premises customers on version 28 install these as cumulative updates. If you are on version 27 or earlier, you upgrade to version 28 first.
Version 29 reached general availability in October 2026, so 28.5 is the final minor update of this wave. Tenants still on version 28 can schedule the move to 29 within the five-month update period, which ends in February 2027.
For full details on each update, see Microsoft’s release notes for 28.1, 28.2, 28.3, 28.4, and 28.5.
For the release that follows this wave, including the SOAP removal and the features that became mandatory, see What’s New in Business Central 2026 Wave 2 (v29).