In celebration of World Emoji Day, the Unicode Consortium this week confirmed the new emoji characters that will be added to Unicode 17 in the fall.
Emoji characters that are coming include trombone, treasure chest, distorted face, hairy creature (aka Bigfoot or Sasquatch), fight cloud, apple core, orca, landslide, and ballet dancers.
After Unicode 17 is released later this year, artists at Apple will begin creating new emoji characters in the Apple emoji style. It takes several months for Apple to introduce new emoji after a Unicode update, so we can expect to see these characters next spring.
Apple will add the emoji to an iOS 26 update next year, likely in iOS 26.4. Apple most recently added new emoji in iOS 18.4, an update that came out in late March.
iOS 18.4 introduced the Unicode 16 emoji, which included bags under eyes, fingerprint, leafless tree, root vegetable, harp, shovel, and splatter.
The Unicode Consortium releases Unicode updates on a yearly basis, adding new emoji characters each time. Anyone can submit an emoji proposal that the Consortium will consider.
