diff --git a/docs/news.rst b/docs/news.rst
index e7301b95..eda608a2 100644
--- a/docs/news.rst
+++ b/docs/news.rst
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 Release Notes
 =============
 
-**UNRELEASED**
+**0.44.0 (2024-08-04)**
 
 - Canonicalized requirements in METADATA file (PR by Wim Jeantine-Glenn)
 - Deprecated the ``bdist_wheel`` module, as the code was migrated to ``setuptools``
diff --git a/src/wheel/__init__.py b/src/wheel/__init__.py
index a773bbbc..2031f41e 100644
--- a/src/wheel/__init__.py
+++ b/src/wheel/__init__.py
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 from __future__ import annotations
 
-__version__ = "0.43.0"
+__version__ = "0.44.0"