Is ‘The Office’ Leaving Netflix?

UPDATE: We can finally say it’s official. The Office expiring from Netflix. The company confirmed the series was still streaming in the most Michael Scott-approved way:

Original story below.

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There are very few things you can count on during these darks times. Puppies will always be cute. Mac and cheese will always be delicious. And The Office will always be a comforting and hilarious binge that makes your Netflix account worth it. But recently, one of those staples of goodness was challenged. Is The Office really leaving Netflix? And if so, when is it expiring, and where is is going?

On Wednesday, May 30 a Twitter user posted about seeing an expiration notice on the show’s Netflix page. According to this user, the NBC sitcom is set to expire from the streaming giant on January 1. It should be noted that based on their Twitter profile, @hannahboucher_ isn’t a verified journalist, critic, or someone who seems to be professionally connected to Netflix.

So far the tweet has been retweeted over 2,000 times and liked almost 4,000 times. Decider has reached out to Netflix for comment and will update this article once we hear back.

Though it’s certainly possible that user @hannahboucher_ saw this notification on their account, there are reasons to be skeptical about this tweet. The Office wasn’t listed as one of the titles that’s set to expire soon from Netflix. Also, Decider has covered Netflix expiration rumors at length, from Star Wars: Clone Wars to Archer and Futurama. This notice about The Office doesn’t look like any other Netflix expiration notice I’ve ever encountered.

Then there’s the issue of the timeline. Netflix typically notifies subscribers about an expiring title about a month before its expiration. In the case of The Office, this notice is appearing an unprecedented seven months before this title is “supposed” to expire.

There’s also the fact that I haven’t found any other user who has reported seeing this notice. Several people on the tweet’s original thread have claimed that this photo is fake. Also, the very active community of paper fanatics over on Reddit’s r/DunderMifflin hasn’t mentioned seeing a removal notice. This community talks about streaming The Office on Netflix quite a bit. If this notice was a going out to all users, this community’s half a million paper salesmen would have freaked out.

I unable to recreate the expiration warning when I checked my account on Netflix’s desktop version, and on iOS. Similarly, when I called Netflix’s customer support phone number, a representative for the company said The Office didn’t have an expiration warning on his end. The representative also explained that the streaming service only posted expiration dates for shows and movies 30 days before they leave Netflix.

Long story short, it seems very unlikely that The Office is leaving Netflix anytime soon. The series is hugely popular and is one of Netflix’s biggest titles. It’s possible there was a glitch that caused some subscribers to see an expiration warning, but I think we can all stay tentatively optimistic. Let’s celebrate by watching the Dundies.

Where to stream The Office