Unicode 18.0 publishes on September 16, 2026 with 13,007 new characters: three historical scripts, three currency symbols, 145 maths and music symbols and 9 new emoji. Nearly 90% of it is writing nobody uses today. The rest reaches your keyboard during 2027.
The beta is over and the contents are settled. Nothing else about this release will change before it goes out.
| Milestone | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Alpha review opened | Feb 10, 2026 | ✅ Done |
| Beta review opened | May 26, 2026 | ✅ Done |
| Public feedback window closed | Jul 7, 2026 | ✅ Done |
| Contents finalised at UTC #188 | Jul 30, 2026 | ✅ Done |
| Unicode 18.0 and Emoji 18.0 publish | Sep 16, 2026 | 📅 Confirmed |
The last row is our estimate from the Unicode 17.0 rollout, not a platform announcement. Method below.
About 90% of the release is old writing systems rather than anything you would type today. Three new scripts carry it: Small Seal (11,328 ideographs, an ancient Chinese seal-script form), Jurchen (914 characters, used in northeastern China under the Jin and Ming dynasties) and Proto-Cuneiform (323 numeric characters, among the earliest writing anywhere).
The rest is what most people will actually meet. Three new currency symbols arrive: the Maldivian rufiyaa, the Omani rial and the UAE dirham. Alongside them come 72 historical mathematical symbols, 73 musical symbols and 9 new emoji. The emoji were a draft slate during the beta and were approved unchanged on July 30, 2026; our emoji entry takes them one by one, with the public vote.
Corrected August 4, 2026. This page first reported the beta's own numbers: 13,047 characters across four new scripts. UTC Meeting #188 changed both on July 30.
| What the beta announced | What publishes on September 16 |
|---|---|
| 13,047 characters | 13,007 characters, 40 fewer |
| Four new scripts, including Chisoi | Three. Chisoi moved to Unicode 19.0 |
| Total repertoire of 172,848 characters | 172,808 characters |
| Release "expected September 2026" | September 16, 2026 |
Chisoi is a modern script for the Kurmali language of northeast India, encoded in 40 characters.
ISO/IEC removed it from the matching edition of its own character standard to allow more time for national body review. Unicode has to stay in step, so the committee sent Chisoi to Unicode 19.0.
It is delayed, not rejected. The full set of decisions is in Unicode 18.0 confirmed for September 16, 2026.
| Platform | Expected |
|---|---|
| Apps and sites with their own font | Soon after September 16, 2026 |
| Samsung Galaxy | Around March 2027 |
| iPhone, iPad, Mac | March or April 2027 |
| Windows | Late 2027 or later |
| Android (Pixel) | Late 2027 at the earliest |
Our estimates from the Unicode 17.0 rollout, not platform announcements.
Unicode 17.0 published on September 9, 2025, and we tracked how long each platform took to draw its new characters: Samsung 5.5 months, Apple 6.5 months, Windows 11.5 months and still not stable, stock Android over 12 months and unfinished. Unicode 18.0 publishes almost exactly a year later, so each measured gap maps straight across.
Based on how Unicode 17.0 rolled out, expect Unicode 18.0's characters on mainstream phones and laptops during 2027, our estimate from that pattern rather than a vendor announcement.
Until then, a character your device cannot draw still copies and pastes correctly, because its codepoint travels with it. Our currency symbols library covers the signs your keyboard already has, and alt codes covers typing the ones with no key of their own. We replace an estimate above with a real date the day a platform ships one.
Symbols and emoji that already render everywhere, one click to copy. No font update needed from anyone.
Open the Unicode Library →Beta timeline and repertoire figures per the Unicode Consortium's official beta review announcement and unicode.org/versions/Unicode18.0.0, with additional context from symbl.cc's coverage of the release. The post-beta figures come from the Release Management Group's report to UTC #188.