Expo SDK 56

Released May 21, 2026

Features

Expo UI is now ready for production

Faster native builds

Expo Modules: easier to write, faster to run

React Native 0.85 and React 19.2

Hermes bytecode diffing is now enabled by default

More capable expo-file-system

Status bar and navigation bar APIs are now consistent

New Calendar, Contacts, and MediaLibrary APIs are now stable

Widgets for iOS promoted to stable

AI-friendly project scaffolding

Convex integration

Type-safe config plugins

Expo CLI performance upgrades

Expo Router drops React Navigation + new features

Brownfield: more flexibility for embedded Expo apps

Prebuilt artifacts for major community libraries

Build time statistics for xcodebuild and Gradle