diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index 8be3ef4c..2ad70abd 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -3,6 +3,10 @@
 Changelog
 #########
 
+1.8 (April 30, 2016)
+----------------------
+TBD
+
 1.7 (April 30, 2016)
 ----------------------
 * Added a new ``move`` return value policy that triggers C++11 move semantics.
diff --git a/include/pybind11/common.h b/include/pybind11/common.h
index 4c059b81..a719a4db 100644
--- a/include/pybind11/common.h
+++ b/include/pybind11/common.h
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@
 #endif
 
 #define PYBIND11_VERSION_MAJOR 1
-#define PYBIND11_VERSION_MINOR 7
+#define PYBIND11_VERSION_MINOR 8
 
 /// Include Python header, disable linking to pythonX_d.lib on Windows in debug mode
 #if defined(_MSC_VER)
diff --git a/pybind11/_version.py b/pybind11/_version.py
index 1e7ad885..afa4cc9b 100644
--- a/pybind11/_version.py
+++ b/pybind11/_version.py
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
-version_info = (1, 7)
+version_info = (1, 8, 'dev0')
 __version__ = '.'.join(map(str, version_info))