diff --git a/doc/source/release.rst b/doc/source/release.rst
index ef1d35a74d2b..cef3a6d0510c 100644
--- a/doc/source/release.rst
+++ b/doc/source/release.rst
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ Release notes
 .. toctree::
     :maxdepth: 3
 
+    1.26.0 <release/1.26.0-notes>
     1.25.2 <release/1.25.2-notes>
     1.25.1 <release/1.25.1-notes>
     1.25.0 <release/1.25.0-notes>
diff --git a/doc/source/release/1.26.0-notes.rst b/doc/source/release/1.26.0-notes.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..c160706d6878
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/release/1.26.0-notes.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+.. currentmodule:: numpy
+
+==========================
+NumPy 1.26.0 Release Notes
+==========================
+
+The NumPy 1.26.0 release is a continuation of the 1.25.x release cycle, but
+with the distutils based build replaced by meson in order to work with Python
+3.12.
+
+The Python versions supported in this release are 3.9-3.12.
+
diff --git a/numpy/core/code_generators/cversions.txt b/numpy/core/code_generators/cversions.txt
index e52193d7a462..651d0fe6259e 100644
--- a/numpy/core/code_generators/cversions.txt
+++ b/numpy/core/code_generators/cversions.txt
@@ -70,4 +70,5 @@
 0x00000010 = 04a7bf1e65350926a0e528798da263c0
 
 # Version 17 (NumPy 1.25) No actual change.
+# Version 17 (NumPy 1.26) No change.
 0x00000011 = ca1aebdad799358149567d9d93cbca09
diff --git a/pavement.py b/pavement.py
index 9704b9ce067c..585194f39647 100644
--- a/pavement.py
+++ b/pavement.py
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
 #-----------------------------------
 
 # Path to the release notes
-RELEASE_NOTES = 'doc/source/release/1.25.2-notes.rst'
+RELEASE_NOTES = 'doc/source/release/1.26.0-notes.rst'
 
 
 #-------------------------------------------------------