diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 1a09cab79..26963eb06 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,60 @@
 # Change Log
 
+## 1.6.0 (8/25/2026)
+> [!IMPORTANT]
+> All client modules are considered stable.  Some modules, including
+> server, CLI, and MCP, are still in developer-preview and may contain
+> bugs.  No guarantee is made about their API stability. Unstable
+> modules are marked with a warning in their `README.md` and with the
+> `@SmithyUnstableApi` annotation in their `package-info.java`.
+
+### Features
+
+* Added event stream support to the dynamic client, allowing event-stream
+  operations to be invoked without code generation.
+  ([#1328](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1328))
+* Updated the dynamic client to resolve authentication per operation, honoring
+  `@auth` overrides, `@auth([])`, and `@optionalAuth` so that auth resolution
+  matches a code-generated client.
+  ([#1328](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1328))
+
+### Bug Fixes
+
+* Fixed XML `isNull()` misclassifying structure list members as null.
+  ([#1330](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1330))
+* Fixed a bug where the validator for unions produced an incorrect path.
+  ([#1314](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1314))
+
+### Improvements
+
+* Improved XML string serialization by writing from compact Latin-1 storage.
+  ([#1327](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1327))
+* Improved CBOR text serialization by writing from compact Latin-1 storage.
+  ([#1326](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1326))
+* Improved JSON string serialization by writing compact strings in a single
+  validate-and-copy pass without requiring JVM flags.
+  ([#1324](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1324))
+* Improved JSON deserialization performance, including faster in-order field
+  name matching, faster JSON string scanning, reading whole-number doubles
+  without the floating-point parser, and parsing ten-digit epoch seconds with a
+  single word compare.
+  ([#1323](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1323),
+  [#1322](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1322),
+  [#1321](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1321),
+  [#1320](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1320))
+* Improved generated builder performance by inlining presence tracking.
+  ([#1319](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1319))
+* Improved JSON string serialization by reserving the exact encoded size and
+  escaping special characters in field names.
+  ([#1318](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1318),
+  [#1317](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1317))
+
+### Documentation
+
+* Updated the closure types example to demonstrate combined, types-only, and
+  no-types generation modes.
+  ([#1311](https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-java/pull/1311))
+
 ## 1.5.1 (8/7/2026)
 > [!IMPORTANT]
 > All client modules are considered stable.  Some modules, including
diff --git a/VERSION b/VERSION
index 26ca59460..dc1e644a1 100644
--- a/VERSION
+++ b/VERSION
@@ -1 +1 @@
-1.5.1
+1.6.0