Unicode 18 Preview: The 19 Emoji Candidates Coming to Your Keyboard in 2027

The emojis you will be sending in 2027 are being decided right now, in spreadsheets and subcommittee meetings you will never see. While your keyboard feels finished, the Unicode Consortium is quietly weighing 19 draft candidates for Unicode 18.0, the release that will define the next wave of icons on more than 3,800-character emoji keyboards worldwide. Some of these candidates will make it to your phone. At least one has already been cut and replaced. Here is what is on the table, and how the sausage actually gets made. 🔮

How an Emoji Gets Made

Every emoji on your keyboard survived a surprisingly long bureaucratic journey. The Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit that standardizes text across all computers, accepts emoji proposals from anyone. Yes, anyone: the 🥟 dumpling emoji famously started as a proposal by a journalist and a former Apple intern.

A proposal must argue expected usage frequency, distinctiveness from existing emojis, and completeness of a category. The Emoji Subcommittee filters submissions, promotes the promising ones to draft candidate status, and the full committee votes on the final list. The timeline for this cycle looks like this:

• Now through September 2026: the 19 draft candidates for Unicode 18.0 are reviewed, refined, and sometimes removed
• September 2026: the final list is expected to be locked and announced
• Throughout 2027: Apple, Google, Samsung and others design their own versions and ship them in software updates

That last step is why there is always a gap between "new emojis approved" headlines and the moment you can actually send one. Vendors typically need 6 to 12 months to design, test and roll out their artwork. 📱

The Standout Candidates

The Unicode 18.0 draft list holds 19 candidates. These are the ones generating the most conversation.

Cracking Face

The drama of this cycle. The draft list originally included a squinting face, but in January 2026 the subcommittee cut it and replaced it with a cracking face: a face fracturing like porcelain. If it survives to the final list, expect it to become the go-to symbol for "holding it together but barely". Gen Z already repurposed 💀 for laughter and 🫠 for quiet overwhelm; a cracking face fills the gap between them. This is the candidate most likely to go viral on day one.

Pickle

Food emojis are reliable workhorses, and the pickle 🥒-adjacent candidate arrives with genuine momentum: pickle content has been a running TikTok phenomenon, from pickle-in-a-blanket snacks to entire pickle-themed accounts. Expect double meanings to attach themselves quickly. Food emojis rarely stay literal, as the peach 🍑 learned long ago.

Lighthouse

A lighthouse fills a real gap in the travel and scenery category alongside 🗼 and 🏰. It also carries obvious metaphorical weight: guidance, hope, staying steady in a storm. Expect it in motivational captions within a week of release. 🌊

Meteor

Space fans currently make do with ☄️ comet and 🌠 shooting star. A dedicated meteor adds drama to the set, and doubles as shorthand for "incoming chaos", which the internet will absolutely use during every product launch and season finale.

Two Thumb Gestures

The draft list includes two new thumb-based hand gestures. Hand emojis are among the most used category on the keyboard: 👍 alone consistently ranks in the global top 10. New hand gestures tend to get adopted faster than any other emoji type because they slot directly into everyday reactions.

Why Candidates Get Cut

The squinting face removal is a useful reminder that draft means draft. Candidates get cut for overlapping too much with existing emojis, for weak evidence of expected use, or simply because vendor representatives cannot see a distinct design surviving at small sizes. Squinting face reportedly sat too close to existing faces like 😑 and 🥴 to justify a slot.

History offers plenty of precedent. Proposals for a frowning poo, a condom emoji, and dozens of brand logos have all been rejected over the years. The committee's core question is always the same: will people around the world use this daily, and does it mean something no current emoji covers?

That filter is why the emoji keyboard grows by only a few dozen icons per year even though hundreds of proposals come in. Scarcity is the point. Every slot has to earn itself.

What This Means for You

For everyday texters, the practical takeaway is patience: nothing on this list will appear on your phone before 2027, no matter what a viral post claims. When someone texts you "did you see the new emojis? 🤯" this fall, they will be looking at approved artwork samples, not something they can actually send yet.

For brands and marketers, the draft list is a planning signal. When the cracking face lands, it will dominate reaction content for months, the way 🫠 melting face did after its release. Teams that map new emojis to their content calendars early consistently ride those adoption waves instead of chasing them.

And for emoji nerds, September 2026 is the date to circle: that is when the final Unicode 18.0 list should be confirmed, and when we learn whether the pickle survives the committee. 🥒

The Road to 2027

The bigger story behind Unicode 18.0 is that emoji growth has matured. The wild expansion years are over, and each new release is now a carefully argued negotiation over a handful of slots. That makes every survivor more meaningful: by the time a cracking face or a lighthouse reaches your keyboard, it has outcompeted hundreds of ideas.

Keep an eye on World Emoji Day this Friday, July 17, when Apple and Google traditionally preview upcoming emoji designs. And check back after September, when the draft becomes final and the 2027 emoji class is officially named. The keyboard of the future is almost here. 🚀