diff --git a/releases/v2.0.3.toml b/releases/v2.0.3.toml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..550a9cdc8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releases/v2.0.3.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+# commit to be tagged for new release
+commit = "HEAD"
+
+project_name = "containerd"
+github_repo = "containerd/containerd"
+match_deps = "^github.com/(containerd/[a-zA-Z0-9-]+)$"
+ignore_deps = [ "github.com/containerd/containerd" ]
+
+# previous release
+previous = "v2.0.2"
+
+pre_release = false
+
+preface = """\
+The third patch release for containerd 2.0 includes various bug fixes and updates.
+"""
+
+postface = """\
+### Which file should I download?
+* `containerd-<VERSION>-<OS>-<ARCH>.tar.gz`:         ✅Recommended. Dynamically linked with glibc 2.31 (Ubuntu 20.04).
+* `containerd-static-<VERSION>-<OS>-<ARCH>.tar.gz`:  Statically linked. Expected to be used on non-glibc Linux distributions. Not position-independent.
+
+In addition to containerd, typically you will have to install [runc](https://github.com/opencontainers/runc/releases)
+and [CNI plugins](https://github.com/containernetworking/plugins/releases) from their official sites too.
+
+See also the [Getting Started](https://github.com/containerd/containerd/blob/main/docs/getting-started.md) documentation.
+"""
diff --git a/version/version.go b/version/version.go
index 28f46ed09..d0749a6cf 100644
--- a/version/version.go
+++ b/version/version.go
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ var (
 	Package = "github.com/containerd/containerd/v2"
 
 	// Version holds the complete version number. Filled in at linking time.
-	Version = "2.0.2+unknown"
+	Version = "2.0.3+unknown"
 
 	// Revision is filled with the VCS (e.g. git) revision being used to build
 	// the program at linking time.