[Due for payment 2026-03-31] Upgrade RN to 0.83

[roryabraham]

Upgrade React Native (RN) to the Latest Version for Enhanced Performance and Compatibility

Background:

Over time, our codebase has grown to include numerous custom patches, and the open-source ecosystem around React Native continues to evolve with frequent updates, performance improvements, and new features. Third-party libraries often adapt quickly to these changes.

Problem:

Using an outdated React Native version complicates patch management, restricts compatibility with modern libraries, and negatively impacts app performance and stability.

Solution:

• Upgrade React Native to latest version and update dependencies
• Audit and remove unnecessary patches
• Conduct thorough testing for stability.

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @mallenexpensify

[roryabraham]

Here we go again!

[roryabraham]

@war-in, last time you did a fantastic job proactively splitting up all the package upgrades you possibly could into separate PRs. However, we ran into a lot of complexity issuing payment for those package bumps.

So this time, I want to do things a bit more methodically and proactively created separate sub-issues for each package upgrade that's needed, each with its own auto-assigned BZ and C+. This will greatly simplify payment lifecycle. For simpler package bumps, we can do a $125 bounty amount. For more complex ones like react-navigation, we can do a $250 bounty amount.

[roryabraham]

so far just created 1 issue for a react-native-reanimated upgrade as that was the only one that I am confident that we need to upgrade

[war-in]

@roryabraham thank you for the issue! I can verify if the upgrade is possible because expo probably won't support RN 0.82 (like they didn't 0.80 and 0.78). We would have to use canary releases that are unstable and there is no guarantee that the app will even build :/

I also noticed that there are releases of 0.83 in the works and that version should be supported by expo (based on the previous releases)

[roryabraham]

If we end up targeting 0.83 that's fine. But let's start upgrading other dependencies for compatibility