Unicode 18.0: 13,007 new characters, nine of them emoji

The Unicode Consortium has released version 18.0 of the standard; the publication is dated 16 September 2026. It adds 13,007 new characters, including nine emoji, and the total number of encoded characters has grown to 172,808. Along with the characters, the code charts, data files, and specifications describing the core text-processing mechanisms have been updated.

The bulk of the increase came not from emoji but from historical writing systems. The 11,328 ideographic characters belong to the Small Seal (Seal, or Small Seal, script) writing system; they hold cultural significance for China and date back to the Qin era, to roughly 200 BCE. For these and other East Asian sets, new data files and the companion document UAX #60 have been added. Another cultural block is the Jurchen script, used in northeast China during the Jin dynasty. There are no new algorithms in the release.

Among the everyday additions are three currency signs: the rufiyaa (U+20C2), the UAE dirham (U+20C3), and the Omani rial (U+20C4). The relevant monetary authorities authorized their public use more than a year ago, but adoption was held back by the absence of a single encoding; now manufacturers can add support for these symbols. Separately, the wording on conformance for variation selectors has been clarified, and guidance has been added to make non-conforming sequences visible in text — this matters because research has shown that sequences of invisible variation selectors can be used to attack modern AI applications.

Image: Unicode Consortium Public domain

Translation editors: Соловьев В., Пеков А.