diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 229392d91..3791176a5 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,58 @@
 # Changelog
 
+## [2.44.0] - 2026-02-27
+
+### Build system
+
+- git-cliff: do not capitalize the first letter of commit message.
+
+### Documentation
+
+- RELEASE.md: add section about dealing with antivirus false positives.
+
+### Features / Changes
+
+- improve logging of connection failures.
+- add backup versions to the importing error message.
+- add context to message loading failures.
+- Add 📱 to all webxdc summaries ([#7790](https://github.com/chatmail/core/pull/7790)).
+- Send webxdc name instead of raw file name in pre-messages. Display it in summary ([#7790](https://github.com/chatmail/core/pull/7790)).
+- rpc: add startup health-check and propagate server errors.
+
+### Fixes
+
+- imex: do not call `set_config` before running SQL migrations ([#7851](https://github.com/chatmail/core/pull/7851)).
+- add missing group description strings to cffi.
+- chat-description-changed text in old clients ([#7870](https://github.com/chatmail/core/pull/7870)).
+- add cffi type for "Description changed" info message.
+- If there was no chat description, and it's set to be an empty string, don't send out a "chat description changed" message ([#7879](https://github.com/chatmail/core/pull/7879)).
+- Make clicking on broadcast member-added messages work always ([#7882](https://github.com/chatmail/core/pull/7882)).
+- tolerate empty existing directory in Accounts::new() ([#7886](https://github.com/chatmail/core/pull/7886)).
+- If importing a backup fails, delete the partially-imported profile ([#7885](https://github.com/chatmail/core/pull/7885)).
+- Don't generate new timestamp for re-sent messages ([#7889](https://github.com/chatmail/core/pull/7889)).
+
+### Miscellaneous Tasks
+
+- cargo: update async-native-tls from 0.5.0 to 0.6.0.
+- add dev-version bump instructions to RELEASE.md (bumping to 2.44.0-dev).
+- deps: bump cachix/install-nix-action from 31.9.0 to 31.9.1.
+
+### Performance
+
+- batched event reception.
+
+### Refactor
+
+- enable clippy::arithmetic_side_effects lint.
+- imex: check for overflow when adding blob size.
+- http: saturating addition to calculate cache expiration timestamp.
+- Move migrations to the end of the file ([#7895](https://github.com/chatmail/core/pull/7895)).
+- do not chain Autocrypt key verification to parsing.
+
+### Tests
+
+- fail fast when CHATMAIL_DOMAIN is unset.
+
 ## [2.43.0] - 2026-02-17
 
 ### Features / Changes
@@ -7767,3 +7820,4 @@ https://github.com/chatmail/core/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed
 [2.41.0]: https://github.com/chatmail/core/compare/v2.40.0..v2.41.0
 [2.42.0]: https://github.com/chatmail/core/compare/v2.41.0..v2.42.0
 [2.43.0]: https://github.com/chatmail/core/compare/v2.42.0..v2.43.0
+[2.44.0]: https://github.com/chatmail/core/compare/v2.43.0..v2.44.0
diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index fa750413b..d494b11be 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -1303,7 +1303,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "deltachat"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "astral-tokio-tar",
@@ -1413,7 +1413,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "deltachat-jsonrpc"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "async-channel 2.5.0",
@@ -1434,7 +1434,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "deltachat-repl"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "deltachat",
@@ -1450,7 +1450,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "deltachat-rpc-server"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "deltachat",
@@ -1479,7 +1479,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "deltachat_ffi"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "deltachat",
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index e8af323ae..74d8b2146 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [package]
 name = "deltachat"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 edition = "2024"
 license = "MPL-2.0"
 rust-version = "1.88"
diff --git a/deltachat-ffi/Cargo.toml b/deltachat-ffi/Cargo.toml
index a86cfeb98..0d972a9ac 100644
--- a/deltachat-ffi/Cargo.toml
+++ b/deltachat-ffi/Cargo.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [package]
 name = "deltachat_ffi"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 description = "Deltachat FFI"
 edition = "2018"
 readme = "README.md"
diff --git a/deltachat-jsonrpc/Cargo.toml b/deltachat-jsonrpc/Cargo.toml
index fc6be1450..14a538fec 100644
--- a/deltachat-jsonrpc/Cargo.toml
+++ b/deltachat-jsonrpc/Cargo.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [package]
 name = "deltachat-jsonrpc"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 description = "DeltaChat JSON-RPC API"
 edition = "2021"
 license = "MPL-2.0"
diff --git a/deltachat-jsonrpc/typescript/package.json b/deltachat-jsonrpc/typescript/package.json
index 95844aff4..a2416007b 100644
--- a/deltachat-jsonrpc/typescript/package.json
+++ b/deltachat-jsonrpc/typescript/package.json
@@ -54,5 +54,5 @@
   },
   "type": "module",
   "types": "dist/deltachat.d.ts",
-  "version": "2.44.0-dev"
+  "version": "2.44.0"
 }
diff --git a/deltachat-repl/Cargo.toml b/deltachat-repl/Cargo.toml
index 7544590b4..11e0c6b87 100644
--- a/deltachat-repl/Cargo.toml
+++ b/deltachat-repl/Cargo.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [package]
 name = "deltachat-repl"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 license = "MPL-2.0"
 edition = "2021"
 repository = "https://github.com/chatmail/core"
diff --git a/deltachat-rpc-client/pyproject.toml b/deltachat-rpc-client/pyproject.toml
index f7972e6e2..469d479eb 100644
--- a/deltachat-rpc-client/pyproject.toml
+++ b/deltachat-rpc-client/pyproject.toml
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
 
 [project]
 name = "deltachat-rpc-client"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 license = "MPL-2.0"
 description = "Python client for Delta Chat core JSON-RPC interface"
 classifiers = [
diff --git a/deltachat-rpc-server/Cargo.toml b/deltachat-rpc-server/Cargo.toml
index b80786647..c46db7ae8 100644
--- a/deltachat-rpc-server/Cargo.toml
+++ b/deltachat-rpc-server/Cargo.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [package]
 name = "deltachat-rpc-server"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 description = "DeltaChat JSON-RPC server"
 edition = "2021"
 readme = "README.md"
diff --git a/deltachat-rpc-server/npm-package/package.json b/deltachat-rpc-server/npm-package/package.json
index 626b25ab2..32d496037 100644
--- a/deltachat-rpc-server/npm-package/package.json
+++ b/deltachat-rpc-server/npm-package/package.json
@@ -15,5 +15,5 @@
   },
   "type": "module",
   "types": "index.d.ts",
-  "version": "2.44.0-dev"
+  "version": "2.44.0"
 }
diff --git a/python/pyproject.toml b/python/pyproject.toml
index 59023d0a3..907a57e10 100644
--- a/python/pyproject.toml
+++ b/python/pyproject.toml
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
 
 [project]
 name = "deltachat"
-version = "2.44.0-dev"
+version = "2.44.0"
 license = "MPL-2.0"
 description = "Python bindings for the Delta Chat Core library using CFFI against the Rust-implemented libdeltachat"
 readme = "README.rst"
diff --git a/release-date.in b/release-date.in
index e1186354a..e9f46c8b7 100644
--- a/release-date.in
+++ b/release-date.in
@@ -1 +1 @@
-2026-02-24
\ No newline at end of file
+2026-02-27
\ No newline at end of file