The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for multi cycle vehicle software update compliance handling. The system includes a processor configured to query one or more vehicle electroniccontrol unit (ECU) modules to determine current software versions installed on the ECU modules, responsive to a multi-cycle update process resuming. The processor is also configured to pause the update process, responsive to the query identifying a change in at least one software version to a different version from when the update process first began. The processor is additionally configured to report the change to a remote source.