diff --git a/docs/release-notes.md b/docs/release-notes.md
index dd3c9817d..6a122bacc 100644
--- a/docs/release-notes.md
+++ b/docs/release-notes.md
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 ## Latest changes
 
+## 0.44.0
+
 * Add GitHub action [Issue Manager](https://github.com/tiangolo/issue-manager). PR [#742](https://github.com/tiangolo/fastapi/pull/742).
 * Fix typos in docs. PR [734](https://github.com/tiangolo/fastapi/pull/734) by [@bundabrg](https://github.com/bundabrg).
 * Fix usage of `custom_encoder` in `jsonable_encoder`. PR [#715](https://github.com/tiangolo/fastapi/pull/715) by [@matrixise](https://github.com/matrixise).
diff --git a/fastapi/__init__.py b/fastapi/__init__.py
index 21bba9987..e83869876 100644
--- a/fastapi/__init__.py
+++ b/fastapi/__init__.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 """FastAPI framework, high performance, easy to learn, fast to code, ready for production"""
 
-__version__ = "0.43.0"
+__version__ = "0.44.0"
 
 from starlette.background import BackgroundTasks