This post was originally published on OpenRepair.org on October 22nd 2025
Last weekend, on International Repair Day, groups around the world came together en masse to celebrate repair, engage with their local community and combat software obsolescence. Much like previous years, the 2025 edition was the biggest one yet — our movement and the demand for repair just keeps growing!
This year, many repair campaigners and community groups around the world were unified in a joint cause to mitigate the massive detrimental effects of the end of Windows 10. In preparation for the end of support — only four days before Repair Day — groups around the world put together toolkits to support people to save their laptop from becoming obsolete. In the lead up to, and on, Repair Day, groups put their knowledge to good use, holding events to migrate laptops to other operating systems or educate participants on what they could do to extend the life of their tech.
Other groups, celebrated in a more traditional way by running their regular events or with a slight celebratory twist be it cake, bunting or otherwise. These events — not just the ones on Repair Day — are growing rapidly. The Open Repair Alliance’s new dataset, released annually in honour of Repair Day, shows just how widespread repair communities have become. The total number of electrical and electronic devices recorded at community repair events has grown by a whopping 46% since last year’s release!
Action kicked off early in Brussels
Kicking off the Repair Day celebrations early — and coinciding with final day of Windows 10 support and E-Waste Day — the European Right to Repair campaign staged a stunt outside of Microsoft’s Brussels headquarters. Using a display of perfectly functioning Windows 10 laptops which are at risk of becoming obsolete, they spread the word about the environmental catastrophe that is the end 10. With almost 400 million laptops primed to become unsecure, we face a potential 700 million kg of electrical waste if these devices fall out of use. Right to Repair Europe chanted, stomped and demanded that the European Commission introduce Ecodesign requirements mandating 15 years of software updates for laptops and adequate support for other energy-related products, so that this cannot happen again.
A snapshot of what happened around the world
There were over 3,500 events registered on the Repair Day map this year, a huge increase of activity up almost 55%! And 50 countries were represented, which is more than any previous edition. It’s amazing to see the repair movement continue to grow and thrive, both in our established communities and in new parts of the world.
The range of activities happening across the globe was inspiring. Community Creativity for Development brought the fight against premature obsolescence to Uganda with an End of Windows 10 support event at Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement, while Repair Cafe Collective India hosted a film screening about the tradition of tailoring at the Urban Lens Festival. Southern Taiwan Repair Café Alliance held a Appliance Repair Tour × Circular Repair Exhibition, while FabPatch in Perth attempted to break an unofficial world record of people repairing clothes simultaneously. And our friends at the Australian Repair Network held their 5th Australian Repair Summit in Canberra!
There were over 230 events in the UK alone this year, including an event by The Restart Project at the iconic Barbican Centre in London. The event tapped into community repair at two levels, starting the morning with an event to introduce new volunteers to community repair and skill them up, then an afternoon session helping the public to repair their broken devices. In Bristol, a mini-festival took place at the Sparks Department Store with 15 different sessions taking place across the day including, a Microsoft 10 workshop, roundtable discussions, a bike maintenance workshop and a visit from the Fixy bus. Just across the border in Wales, Re:Make Newport celebrated their fourth birthday!
France had another bumper year of events marking HOP’s Journées Nationales de la Réparation, logging over 2,000 events over the period. And our data partners in Belgium, Germany and Denmark also went full steam ahead, holding events all over. Repair Day activity across Europe continued to spread and we saw events happening in Ukraine, Moldova, Hungary, Estonia, Slovenia, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Finland and more!
The USA and Canada continued the trend of a boom in events with almost 50 taking place including a screening of a documentary about an Automotive Free Clinic and multiple Fix-a-Thons. In South and Central America, events were held in Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, and Panama. And in Chile, Reparemos brought the creative spirit and joy of repair with a puppet show called “Violeta and Matthew invite you to repair”.
Learn more about what went on:
- Explore the full map of events
- HOP’s Journées Nationales de la Réparation
- Explore our 2025 ORA dataset release
- Restart’s End of 10 toolkit