WordPress 6.9 is scheduled for release in just 24 hours from now, on December 2nd, 2025, during the State of the Word address.
An unscheduled Release Candidate 4 was released today that includes critical bug fixes. As always, testing on the part of hosts is vital, as it helps inform the development process and assures compatibility on hosting systems. Thank you to all hosts who help with testing!
Hosts should review the WordPress 6.9 Field Guide for technical details about what is changing in this release. Here are some highlights that may affect hosts and support teams:
- WordPress 6.9 includes ‘Beta Support’ for PHP 8.5 and contains 2 new function polyfills.
- Query groups in 6.9 use cache keys instead of salts. This should not have any adverse affects on existing object cache configurations in hosting systems, but hosts may want to take advantage of the four new functions for optimizing object cache.
- Five APIs have either been introduced or updated in WordPress 6.9. This includes the new Abilities API for facilitating AI integration, as well as updates to the Field API, Interactivity API, HTML API, and Block Bindings API.
- 6.9 includes numerous performance optimizations to database queries, caching, script handing, WP Cron, and more.
- Text encoding and UTF-8 handling is now processed independently of the running environment.
- URL-escaping functions now have additional https support baked in.
- ‘iframe’ integration in the post editor has been iterated on with more to come.
- This release has 21 new action and filter hooks bundled in.
- WordPress 6.9 also includes two new AI clients for AI integration; the PHP AI Client SDK and the MCP Adapter.
- This release does not contain a new default theme.
If hosts encounter an issue during testing, please comment in the #hosting channel or report it directly to WordPress Trac.
Hosts that offer custom plugins and themes will want to make sure to update the “Tested up to” version in the theme or plugin readme file to `6.9` (if it has been tested).
Feel free to browse all posts related to WordPress 6.9 here, and drop by the #hosting Slack channel with any questions or concerns!
A huge thank you to all web hosts that support WordPress. Happy Hosting!
Props to @brettface for proofreading and review.