From SSRS to Power BI Report Server: A Migration Checklist for SQL Server 2025
If your reporting estate still runs on SQL Server Reporting Services, 2026 is the year to decide its future. Microsoft has confirmed that there will be no new version of SSRS for SQL Server 2025. Instead, all on-premises reporting is being consolidated under Power BI Report Server, which is now the default reporting solution for SQL Server 2025. Nothing is being switched off overnight — but the roadmap is clear, and it's time to plan the move.
What actually changed
The headlines are simple. SSRS 2022 is the last standalone release of SQL Server Reporting Services; it stays in support until January 2033, so your existing servers keep running. What changes is the future: no new SSRS features, no new SSRS version, ever. Power BI Report Server is now the default on-premises reporting platform for SQL Server, and it is available to every customer with a paid SQL Server 2025 license — previously it was restricted to Enterprise Edition customers with Software Assurance. Standard Edition shops can now use PBIRS too.
For most organizations, this is good news wrapped in a planning exercise. PBIRS runs the same paginated (RDL) reports you're already using, so most of your report assets carry over. But there is no in-place upgrade path from SSRS to PBIRS — a side-by-side migration is required — and some things, like your scheduled report distribution, deserve fresh thinking during the move.
Your migration checklist
1. Inventory your estate. Before anything else, catalog your reports, shared data sources, datasets, subscriptions, and custom delivery extensions. Mark which reports are paginated RDL (these migrate easily) and which, if any, rely on features that don't exist in PBIRS. Note who receives what — this becomes important in step 5.
2. Back up everything. Back up the SSRS encryption key and the report server databases. Microsoft's own migration guidance starts here, and so should you. Store the backups where the new server can reach them.
3. Install and migrate, don't upgrade. There is no in-place upgrade from SSRS to Power BI Report Server. The supported path: clone your report server database to the target SQL Server instance, install Power BI Report Server on the new machine, then use the Report Server Configuration Manager to connect it to the cloned database and restore the encryption key. Migrations from SSRS 2022 require the May 2025 or later release of PBIRS.
4. Verify reports and data sources. In most cases, RDL reports work without modification, and shared data sources, datasets, subscriptions, and schedules are preserved. Test rendering on a representative sample before cutting over users — pay special attention to custom data extensions and any report relying on SSRS-specific behavior.
5. Reassess scheduled distribution. Here's where many migrations quietly stumble. SSRS subscriptions migrate, but this is also a natural moment to ask whether your delivery setup should be rebuilt better. Data-driven subscriptions — the SSRS feature that personalizes and distributes reports to hundreds of recipients — were always an Enterprise Edition exclusive. If you've been running Standard Edition, you've never had them. An SSRS data-driven subscriptions alternative like remiCrystal gives you data-driven, burst-style distribution without the Enterprise license, and it works the same way against Power BI Report Server — so your distribution layer survives this migration and the next one.
6. Update the loose ends. Bookmarks, application integrations, report URLs, and any code that hits the old ReportServer endpoints need updating. Plan your cutover window, and keep the old instance read-only until users confirm everything works.
What about licensing costs?
One genuinely positive change: with SQL Server 2025, any paid edition gets PBIRS access. If your team is on Standard Edition and has been eyeing capabilities that were previously Enterprise-only, the migration effectively comes with a free capability upgrade. The corollary is worth noting too — if your only reason for holding an Enterprise license was data-driven subscriptions, this migration is the right moment to audit that spend. A report scheduler like remiCrystal that runs outside the SQL Server edition tiers can deliver personalized, burst-style report distribution at a fraction of the cost, whether you stay on SSRS 2022 for years or move to PBIRS this quarter.
The bottom line
The SSRS-to-Power BI Report Server migration is more planning exercise than engineering project for most teams: back up, install, connect, verify, update. The real work is deciding what to improve while you're in there. Your reports will move over nearly untouched — make sure your distribution strategy does the same, and consider using the migration to give every edition the automated delivery that used to be reserved for Enterprise.
Take the migration further. If you're planning an SSRS migration, remiCrystal can take over scheduled report delivery for both your old SSRS instance and your new Power BI Report Server — data-driven subscriptions, PDF bursting, email, SharePoint, and printer delivery, with no scripting required. Try it free at remiware.co and migrate without rebuilding your distribution from scratch.