Apple released iOS 26 on Sept. 15, and while the update didn’t include any new emoji, a future iOS 26 update will bring nine new emoji to your iPhone. On July 17, also known as World Emoji Day, the Unicode Consortium announced that the newest emoji will debut this September as part of Unicode 17.0. That means iPhones and Android devices will get these emoji sometime next spring.
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Here are the new emoji you can expect to see later this year and on your device next year.
- Trombone
- Treasure chest
- Distorted face
- Hairy creature (Sasquatch)
- Fight cloud
- Apple core
- Orca
- Ballet dancers
- Landslide
“These new emoji have long-standing symbolic meanings, are visually distinctive and contain multitudes of expression,” the Unicode Consortium wrote online.
These new emoji were proposed in November 2024. According to Unicode, the data files for these emoji will be made available this fall as part of Unicode 17.0. Then, the emoji will likely appear on your device in spring 2026.
Emojipedia, an online encyclopedia of emoji managed by people who research emoji, announced on World Emoji Day that the distorted face emoji won the award for Most Anticipated Emoji 2025.
In 2024, the Unicode Consortium debuted new emoji in September 2024, including the face with bags under eyes and the splatter emoji. You can find those emoji now on your Android and iPhone devices, as well as across the internet.
Correction, July 18: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed the number of emoji that had been approved for the Unicode 17.0 update. Unicode has since confirmed that nine emoji have been approved, including the Landslide emoji.
For more on emoji, here’s all the emoji award winners for 2025, the favorite emoji among the staff and how to decipher every emoji.
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