Unicode Versions and Emoji Evolution

Before emoji entered Unicode

By the late 2000s, emoji were a standard feature on Japanese mobile phones. The three major carriers, NTT DoCoMo, au, and SoftBank, each had their own emoji sets. Sending an email between carriers often garbled the emoji.

Mark Davis, co-founder of the Unicode Consortium, and his team set out to solve this through an international standard. In 2007, they began proposing emoji standardization to the Unicode Technical Committee (UTC). In February 2009, the UTC voted to include 674 emoji characters in a future Unicode Standard. Apple senior software engineer Peter Edberg seconded the motion, and the word "emoji" appeared in UTC meeting notes for the first time.

Unicode 6.0 (2010) -- The beginning of emoji standardization

Unicode 6.0, released in October 2010, designated 722 characters as emoji. Of these, 114 were already in Unicode 5.2 as symbols in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Dingbats blocks. The remaining 608 were added as new code points for emoji.

The 722 characters were constructed as the union of emoji sets from Japan's three carriers: DoCoMo's i-mode emoji, au's EZweb emoji, and SoftBank's emoji, all merged into a single standard. The garbled-text problem didn't vanish overnight, but having common code points laid the groundwork for resolution.

The following year, Apple included an emoji keyboard by default in iOS 5. English-speaking users started using emoji, and global adoption took off.

Unicode 7.0 (2014) -- Absorbing Webdings and Wingdings

Unicode 7.0 in June 2014 incorporated characters from Microsoft's Webdings and Wingdings fonts. Of the roughly 250 characters added, about 103 were recommended for emoji presentation. The rest were encoded in Unicode but not officially designated as emoji.

One notable addition was Slightly Smiling Face (🙂). Unicode 6.0 already had smiling emoji, but this one was added as a subtler smile with a different nuance from White Smiling Face (☺). The set also included oddities like Man in Business Suit Levitating (🕴), which a Webdings designer had based on a record label logo.

Unicode 8.0 / Emoji 1.0 (2015) -- Skin tones and the first Emoji standard

Unicode 8.0 was released in June 2015, adding 37 new emoji plus 5 skin tone modifiers.

The skin tone modifiers are based on the Fitzpatrick Scale used in dermatology. The original scale has six types, but Types I and II were merged, resulting in five levels from light to dark skin. Placing a modifier immediately after a person emoji changes its skin tone.

In June 2015, Emoji 1.0 was also published. Issued as UTR #51 (Unicode Technical Report #51), it was the first specification to officially define which Unicode characters should be treated as emoji. It documented the skin tone modifier mechanism, ZWJ sequences for families and couples, and display recommendations when variation selectors are absent.

Emoji added in Unicode 8.0 include Thinking Face (🤔), Upside-Down Face (🙃), Unicorn (🦄), and Taco (🌮).

Unicode 9.0 (2016) -- Everyday conversation emoji

Unicode 9.0 / Emoji 3.0 added 72 new emoji. This version stood out for its gestures and expressions used in daily conversation.

Shrug (🤷), Face Palm (🤦), ROFL (🤣), Selfie (🤳), and Fingers Crossed (🤞) covered body language that text alone couldn't convey. Fox (🦊) and Gorilla (🦍) were added among animals, and Bacon (🥓) among foods.

Unicode 10.0-11.0 (2017-2018)

Unicode 10.0 / Emoji 5.0 (2017) added 56 new emoji, including T-Rex (🦖), Giraffe (🦒), Star-Struck (🤩), and Exploding Head (🤯). In this version, the Emoji specification was promoted from UTR #51 to UTS #51 (Unicode Technical Standard), becoming an independent technical standard.

Unicode 11.0 / Emoji 11.0 (2018) added 66 new code points, totaling 157 new emoji when skin tone and gender variations were included. Superhero (🦸) and Supervillain (🦹) appeared, along with red hair, curly hair, white hair, and bald variations.

Emoji 11.0 jumped directly from Emoji 5.0 because version numbers were synchronized with the Unicode Standard (Emoji versions 6.0 through 10.0 were skipped).

The relationship between Unicode Standard and Emoji Standard

The Unicode Standard defines code points for characters, covering writing systems from around the world beyond just emoji. The Emoji Standard is a separate specification that defines which code points should be treated as emoji and which sequences are recommended.

Independent versioning began with Emoji 1.0 (2015), but the two aren't always released together. Emoji 2.0 (November 2015), Emoji 4.0 (November 2016), and Emoji 13.1 (September 2020), among others, were released without adding new code points, containing only new sequences or display recommendations for existing code points.

Since Emoji 11.0, version numbers have been roughly aligned with the Unicode Standard, though minor releases like Emoji 12.1 and 13.1 still diverge.

How ZWJ sequences work

Zero Width Joiner (ZWJ, U+200D) is a zero-width formatting character. Inserting ZWJ between emoji causes supported systems to render them as a single emoji.

For example, Woman (👩) + ZWJ + Wrench (🔧) produces "woman mechanic" (👩‍🔧). Man + ZWJ + Man + ZWJ + Girl + ZWJ + Boy produces a family of two men, a girl, and a boy (👨‍👨‍👧‍👦).

This mechanism provides backward compatibility. On systems that don't support a given ZWJ sequence, the ZWJ character is ignored and the component emoji are displayed individually. The intended appearance is lost, and details like occupation or family composition may not come through correctly, but the content doesn't become entirely unreadable.

The Unicode Consortium publishes a list of RGI (Recommended for General Interchange) ZWJ sequences, and platform vendors prioritize support for this list.

Unicode 12.0-14.0 (2019-2021)

Unicode 12.0 / Emoji 12.0 (2019) included accessibility emoji that Apple had proposed in 2018: a person with a white cane, manual wheelchair, motorized wheelchair, prosthetic arm, prosthetic leg, guide dog, and service dog. Couple emoji with different skin tones were also added. With 59 base emoji and their variations, the total came to 230.

Unicode 13.0 / Emoji 13.0 (2020) added 55 new code points including Ninja (🥷) and Bubble Tea (🧋). Emoji 13.1 (September 2020) was released without a Unicode update, introducing 217 new emoji (mostly skin tone variants) such as mixed-skin-tone Handshake and Kiss.

Unicode 14.0 / Emoji 14.0 (2021) added 37 new code points. Melting Face (🫠), Saluting Face (🫡), and Heart Hands (🫶) were included, as well as Pregnant Man (🫃) and Pregnant Person (🫄).

Recent developments (2022-2025)

Unicode 15.0 / Emoji 15.0 (2022) added 20 new code points, but with sequences included, only 31 recommended emoji total, the smallest release since the Emoji versioning system began. These include Shaking Face (🫨), Pink Heart (🩷), Jellyfish (🪼), and Moose (🫎).

Unicode 15.1 / Emoji 15.1 (2023) added zero new code points. Six new emoji concepts (head shaking horizontally, head shaking vertically, lime, phoenix, brown mushroom, and broken chain) were all implemented as ZWJ sequences. For example, Phoenix (🐦‍🔥) combines Bird + Fire, and Lime (🍋‍🟩) combines Lemon + Green Square. Including directional variants and family emoji, the total reached 118 new emoji.

Unicode 16.0 / Emoji 16.0 (2024) added 8 emoji from 7 new code points: Harp, Shovel, Face with Bags Under Eyes, Fingerprint, Splatter, Root Vegetable, Leafless Tree, and Flag: Sark. The total RGI emoji count reached 3,790.

Unicode 17.0 / Emoji 17.0 (September 2025) added 163 new emoji through 7 new code points plus skin tone sequences for existing emoji. Distorted Face, Ballet Dancer, Orca, Trombone, and Treasure Chest are among them. The total RGI emoji count reached approximately 3,953.

The emoji proposal process

Anyone can propose a new emoji. You submit a PDF proposal to the Unicode Consortium with color and black-and-white sample images at 18x18 and 72x72 pixels.

Evidence of usage frequency is required: screenshots from Google Search, Google Video Search, Google Trends (both Web Search and Image Search), and Google Books Ngram Viewer. The benchmark for comparison is "elephant," chosen because its usage frequency is close to the median among emoji. Petitions and hashtags are not accepted as evidence.

The UTC evaluates proposals against several criteria: whether the emoji has high global usage frequency, whether it overlaps with existing emoji, whether it's visually distinguishable at 18x18 pixels, whether it carries multiple meanings or metaphors, and others.

Proposals depicting logos, brands, specific individuals, specific buildings, deities, or containing text are automatically rejected. New flag proposals are no longer accepted; flags based on ISO 3166-1 region codes are added automatically. Rejected proposals cannot be resubmitted for four years.

The UTC meets quarterly, advancing proposals through stages: Provisional Candidate, Draft Candidate, and Final Candidate. From proposal to actual release typically takes about two years.

Emoji today

As of Emoji 17.0, the total RGI emoji count stands at approximately 3,953. The People & Body category is the largest, with skin tone and gender variations making up the bulk.

What started as 722 characters in 2010 has grown to approximately 3,953 in fifteen years. The early effort was about establishing standards to fix garbled text between carriers, but as skin tone modifiers and ZWJ sequences were added, it became a matter of who gets represented and how. The pace of new code point additions has slowed year by year, while expansion through ZWJ sequences, combining existing characters, continues.