diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 5da3c19ab1..bbcee61aa9 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,102 @@
 # Release Notes
 
+## Version 1.26.0-beta.0 - 2022-05-13
+
+Featues:
+* Add support for the QEMU driver [#13639](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13639)
+* Add support for building aarch64 ISO [#13762](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13762)
+* Support rootless Podman driver (Usage: `minikube config set rootless true`) [#13829](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13829)
+
+Minor Improvements:
+* Add JSON output to `minikube delete` [#13979](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13979)
+* Add `--audit` flag to `minikube logs` command [#13991](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13991)
+* Add `--disable-metrics` flag [#13802](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13802)
+* Get latest valid tag for each image during caching [#14006](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/14006)
+* Remove docker requirement for none driver [#13885](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13885)
+* Add 'subnet' flag for docker/podman driver [#13730](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13730)
+* Don't write logs that contain environment variables [#13877](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13877)
+* Implemented minimum and recommended Docker versions [#13842](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13842)
+
+Bug Fixes:
+* Fix "Your cgroup does not allow setting memory" [#14115](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/14115)
+* Fix nvidia-gpu with kvm-driver [#13972](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13972)
+* Fix `minikube delete` for Podman v4 [#13881](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13881)
+* Fix pre command flags [#13995](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13995)
+* Fix logging when JSON output selected [#13955](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13955)
+* Fix port validation error on specifying tcp/udp or range of ports. [#13812](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13812)
+* Fix not downloading kic for offline mode [#13910](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13910)
+* Fix trying to pause multiple containers with runc [#13783](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13783)
+* Fix `minikube servce` docker/port-forward issues [#13756](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13756)
+
+Version Upgrades:
+* Upgrade Kubernetes default: v1.23.6 and latest: v1.23.6 [#14144](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/14144)
+* ISO/KIC: Upgrade buildkit from 0.9.0 to 0.10.3 [#13791](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13791)
+* ISO: Upgrade Docker from 20.10.12 to 20.10.14 [#13860](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13860)
+* ISO: Upgrade crio from 1.22.1 to 1.22.3 [#13800](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13800)
+* ISO: Upgrade buildroot from 2021.02.4 to 2021.02.12 [#13814](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13814)
+* Upgrade nginx image from 1.1.1 to 1.2.0 [#14028](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/14028)
+* ISO: Upgrade falco-module from 0.24.0 to 0.31.1 [#13659](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13659)
+* Upgrade kubernetes dashboard from 2.3.1 to 2.5.1 [#13741](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13741)
+* KIC: Upgrade kicbase base image from 20210401 to 20220316 [#13815](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13815)
+* ISO: Upgrade Podman from 2.2.1 to 3.4.2 [#13126](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/13126)
+* ISO: Add packaging for crun [#11679](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/pull/11679)
+
+For a more detailed changelog, including changes occuring in pre-release versions, see [CHANGELOG.md](https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md).
+
+Thank you to our contributors for this release!
+
+- Akihiro Suda
+- Akira Yoshiyama
+- Anders F Björklund
+- Ashwin Somasundara
+- Carlos Eduardo Arango Gutierrez
+- Daniel Petri
+- F1ko
+- Filip Nikolic
+- Ileriayo Adebiyi
+- Jeff MAURY
+- Jin Zhang
+- Medya Ghazizadeh
+- Nikhil2001
+- Pablo Caderno
+- Piotr Resztak
+- Predrag Rogic
+- Sean Wei
+- Sharif Elgamal
+- Steven Powell
+- Tomohito YABU
+- Toshiaki Inukai
+- betaboon
+- ckannon
+- edwinwalela
+- klaases
+- naveensrinivasan
+- staticdev
+- ziyi-xie
+
+Thank you to our PR reviewers for this release!
+
+- spowelljr (55 comments)
+- medyagh (39 comments)
+- afbjorklund (14 comments)
+- klaases (14 comments)
+- jesperpedersen (9 comments)
+- sharifelgamal (6 comments)
+- atoato88 (3 comments)
+- jepio (3 comments)
+- mprimeaux (2 comments)
+- shu-mutou (2 comments)
+- t-inu (2 comments)
+- AkihiroSuda (1 comments)
+
+Thank you to our triage members for this release!
+
+- afbjorklund (52 comments)
+- klaases (39 comments)
+- RA489 (28 comments)
+- spowelljr (24 comments)
+- zhan9san (24 comments)
+
 ## Version 1.25.2 - 2022-02-23
 
 Features:
@@ -81,7 +178,7 @@ Thank you to our triage members for this release!
 - klaases (13 comments)
 - sharifelgamal (12 comments)
 
-Check out our [contributions leaderboard](https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/contrib/leaderboard/v1.25.1/) for this release!
+Check out our [contributions leaderboard](https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/contrib/leaderboard/v1.25.2/) for this release!
 
 ## Version 1.25.1 - 2022-01-20
 
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 5c31fb25a7..2e6cafb4c2 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -14,8 +14,8 @@
 
 # Bump these on release - and please check ISO_VERSION for correctness.
 VERSION_MAJOR ?= 1
-VERSION_MINOR ?= 25
-VERSION_BUILD ?= 2
+VERSION_MINOR ?= 26
+VERSION_BUILD ?= 0-beta.0
 RAW_VERSION=$(VERSION_MAJOR).$(VERSION_MINOR).$(VERSION_BUILD)
 VERSION ?= v$(RAW_VERSION)