Maven is not using Java 11 - Fatal error compiling: invalid target release: 11

Question

Seems like you're having the JAVA_HOME set in your mvn.bat. It could be pointing to the older version of Java (i.e. 8 in your case).

set JAVA_HOME=C:\path\to\jdk11 try using it on the first line, before calling maven.

Experiencing this issue while trying to deploy Spring Boot application to Heroku.

My JAVA_HOME was set correctly but was still receiving same error.

But then this worked for me:

In your pom.xml add or adapt to your own context:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
        <source>1.8</source>
        <target>1.8</target>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

If other people are having this same problem but with Eclipse, (I know OP was referring to IntelliJ IDEA) also check the JRE in use for Maven:

• Run configurations...
• Select your Maven Build configuration
• Click the JRE tab and choose the JRE version in accordance with your POM.