Unicode 17.0's New Emoji: Where They Work Right Now

8 new emoji shipped in Unicode 17.0. Here's what they are, and a platform-by-platform tracker of who actually has them yet — updated as availability changes.

Unicode 17.0 Published 2026-07-20 Rollout tracker
What shipped

8 New Emoji, Published September 9, 2025

The Unicode Consortium published Unicode 17.0 — and with it, Emoji 17.0 — on September 9, 2025. It added eight new emoji to the standard: Distorted Face, Fight Cloud, Hairy Creature (Bigfoot), Orca, Landslide, Trombone, Treasure Chest, and Ballet Dancer.

Publishing the standard is only step one. Unicode.org defines the character; each operating system and app then has to ship its own font and keyboard update before that emoji actually renders for its users — which is why "new emoji released" and "new emoji shows up on your phone" can be months apart, and why this page exists as a tracker rather than a one-time announcement.

The check

Platform Rollout Status

Apple shipped first. The Unicode 17.0 emoji reached iPhone in iOS 26.4 on March 24, 2026, and by June 1, 2026 were live across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Android, Windows, Samsung, and WhatsApp are rolling the set out through 2026 on their own separate schedules — none of them publish a single fixed completion date, so "rolling out" below means exactly that: in progress, not yet complete everywhere.

PlatformStatusNotes
iPhone / iPad✅ LiveSince iOS/iPadOS 26.4 (Mar 24, 2026)
Mac✅ LiveSince macOS 26.4
Android🔄 Rolling outVia system updates and Gboard; device-dependent
Windows🔄 Rolling outNo fixed completion date published
Samsung🔄 Rolling outOne UI keyboard/font update, device-dependent
WhatsApp🔄 Rolling outApp-level emoji font, separate from OS support

This table reflects publicly reported rollout status as of this page's last update — not a live per-device check. If a new emoji is missing for you, your platform likely hasn't shipped its Unicode 17.0 update yet.

Why it matters here

A Blank Box Isn't Always a Mistake

Every "Check" tool on this site — the game-name checker, the platform compatibility answers — depends on the same underlying fact: whether a character renders depends on what the reader's device supports, not just what the standard defines. A brand-new Unicode 17.0 emoji showing as an empty box on an older Android phone is the same failure mode covered in why fonts show as boxes — it just has a different, very specific cause: the platform hasn't shipped this particular Unicode version yet.

See also do fancy fonts work on iPhone for the general device-support answer this page's Apple rollout status feeds into.

What's next

Unicode 18.0 Is Already Planned

The next version, Unicode 18.0, is tentatively planned for September 2026. Its draft repertoire adds roughly 13,000 new characters — but the overwhelming majority of that is a single new script (over 11,000 Small Seal ideographs), not a fresh batch of emoji. We'll post a tracker like this one once it ships and platforms start rolling it out.

The standard ships once.
Your device catches up on its own schedule.

That gap is the whole story behind every "why is this a box?" question.

Explore the full Unicode library

Browse symbol and emoji collections, or look up one character's full identity — codepoint, meaning, and device support.

Open the Unicode Library →
Sources

Release date and repertoire figures per the Unicode Consortium's official release notes. Platform rollout dates per each platform's own release notes.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Unicode 17.0 (Emoji 17.0) added 8 new emoji: Distorted Face, Fight Cloud, Hairy Creature (Bigfoot), Orca, Landslide, Trombone, Treasure Chest, and Ballet Dancer.
The Unicode Consortium published Unicode 17.0 on September 9, 2025. Individual platforms then roll the new characters out on their own schedules, which is why a brand-new emoji doesn't appear everywhere at once.
Your device's operating system or app hasn't shipped the Unicode 17.0 font update yet. It'll typically show as a blank box or a generic placeholder glyph until it does — that's expected, not a bug, and it resolves itself once you update.
Unicode 18.0 is tentatively planned for September 2026. The draft repertoire adds roughly 13,000 new characters, the large majority of which are Small Seal script ideographs rather than new emoji.