Emoji 18.0, 16 September 2026
New emoji
Nine new characters were published this month: a cracking face, two thumbs that point sideways, a monarch butterfly, a pickle, a lighthouse, a meteor, an eraser and a net. Your phone almost certainly cannot draw any of them yet, and that is normal.
9
new characters
19 counting skin tones
Emoji 18.0
The new emoji for 2026
Unicode published Emoji 18.0 on 16 September 2026. These nine are the whole of it. The two thumb signs each take the five skin tones, which is how a release of nine characters is also a release of nineteen sequences.
| Emoji | Name | What it is | Code point |
|---|---|---|---|
| | Cracking face | A face breaking apart, for the moment composure goes. | U+1FAEB |
| | Leftwards thumb sign | A thumb pointing left, so two of them can face each other. | U+1FAF9 |
| | Rightwards thumb sign | The mirror of the last one. Both take skin tones. | U+1FAFA |
| | Monarch butterfly | A specific butterfly, where the set had only a generic one. | U+1FACC |
| | Pickle | A pickled cucumber, whole. | U+1FADD |
| | Lighthouse | A lighthouse with its beam lit. | U+1F6D9 |
| | Meteor | A meteor with a trail behind it. | U+1FA8B |
| | Eraser | A rubber, to go with the pencil. | U+1FA8C |
| | Net with handle | The net for catching butterflies or fish. | U+1FA8D |
Seeing boxes in that first column is the expected result today, not a fault on this page. The copy buttons still work: the character goes to your clipboard whether or not your device can draw it.
The wait
When they reach your phone
Unicode standardises the character. It does not draw it. Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft and everyone else each make their own artwork and ship it inside a software update, on their own timetable. That is why a release in September rarely appears on phones the same year, and why the emoji your friend can see may still be a box for you.
The empty box has a name, tofu, and it means only that the font has no picture for that character. The message is undamaged: the character is in the text, and it will appear the moment a font that includes it arrives. iOS and Android emoji covers which update brings them and what you can and cannot change yourself.
Counting
Why every article gives a different number
This release is nine emoji, or nineteen, depending on whether skin tones count. Last year’s was eight, or 163, because it expanded multi-person emoji so each person can have a different skin tone, and every one of those combinations is a separate sequence.
The same split runs through the totals. Unicode counts 3,972 emoji for Emoji 18.0 with every sequence included, and 1,397 if you count only single characters. Neither figure is wrong, and an article quoting one without saying which is why the numbers never agree.
Emoji 17.0
What arrived in 2025
Published on 9 September 2025. Eight characters, and the multi-person skin tone work that took the release to 163 sequences. Phones have been picking these up through 2026, so some of them may draw for you already.
| Emoji | Name | What it is | Code point |
|---|---|---|---|
| | Distorted face | A face warped out of shape, for overwhelm. | U+1FAEA |
| | Fight cloud | The comic-strip scuffle cloud. | U+1FAEF |
| | Hairy creature | A shaggy figure, closer to a yeti than to anything named. | U+1FAC8 |
| 🧑🩰 | Ballet dancer | Built from a person joined to a ballet shoe. | U+1F9D1 U+200D U+1FA70 |
| | Orca | A killer whale, long requested. | U+1FACD |
| | Landslide | Rocks coming down a slope. | U+1F6D8 |
| | Trombone | The instrument, slide and all. | U+1FA8A |
| | Treasure chest | An open chest of gold. | U+1FA8E |
Emoji 16.0
And in 2024
Eight more, from September 2024. These are old enough that most current phones draw them without trouble.
| Emoji | Name | What it is | Code point |
|---|---|---|---|
| | Face with bags under eyes | Exhaustion that 😴 never covered. | U+1FAE9 |
| | Fingerprint | A single print. | U+1FAC6 |
| | Leafless tree | A bare winter tree. | U+1FABE |
| | Root vegetable | A turnip, officially unnamed as one. | U+1FADC |
| | Harp | A concert harp. | U+1FA89 |
| | Shovel | A digging spade. | U+1FA8F |
| | Splatter | A splash of something. | U+1FADF |
| 🇨🇶 | Flag: Sark | The Channel Island, added once it had a country code. | U+1F1E8 U+1F1F6 |
How one gets made
Where new emoji come from
Anyone can propose one. The Unicode Consortium asks a proposal to argue that the emoji would be used often, that it is not already covered by something in the set, and that it is not a logo, a person or a deity. Most proposals fail. Accepted ones wait for the next annual release, which has landed each September in recent years, and then wait again for the vendors to draw them.
The history of emoji, from the carriers to nowQuestions
New emoji FAQ
What are the new emoji for 2026?
Emoji 18.0 adds nine: a cracking face, leftwards and rightwards thumb signs, a monarch butterfly, a pickle, a lighthouse, a meteor, an eraser and a net with handle. Unicode published it on 16 September 2026. Counting the ten skin-tone versions of the two thumbs, the release holds nineteen new sequences.
When will I get the new emoji on my phone?
Not for months. Unicode publishes the standard and then Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft and the rest each draw the characters and ship them in a software update on their own schedule. The gap between a release and the fonts arriving has usually run from a few months to most of a year.
Why do the new emoji show as empty boxes?
Because your device has no picture for them yet. The box, sometimes called tofu, is what a font shows for a character it does not know. Nothing is broken and nothing is missing from the message: the character is there, and it will appear properly once your phone has a font that includes it.
How many emoji are there in total?
3,972 by Unicode's count for Emoji 18.0, which includes every sequence: flags, skin tones, families and the rest. Counting only single characters, the figure is 1,397. Both numbers are correct and they answer different questions.
What was new in 2025?
Emoji 17.0, published on 9 September 2025, added eight characters: a distorted face, a fight cloud, a hairy creature, a ballet dancer, an orca, a landslide, a trombone and a treasure chest. It also expanded multi-person emoji so that two people in one emoji can have different skin tones, which is where the release's 163 total sequences came from.
Who decides what becomes an emoji?
The Unicode Consortium. Anyone can submit a proposal, which has to argue for expected frequency of use and show that the idea is not already covered. Most are rejected. Accepted ones join the next annual release, which has landed each September in recent years.
Sources
Checked against Unicode
Every character, name, code point, date and count on this page comes from Unicode itself rather than from coverage of it. This page was written on 20 September 2026, four days after the release.
Keep exploring
Related reading
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