diff --git a/releases/v1.0.0-beta.3.toml b/releases/v1.0.0-beta.3.toml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..b667d2636
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releases/v1.0.0-beta.3.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+# commit to be tagged for new release
+commit = "HEAD"
+
+project_name = "containerd"
+github_repo = "containerd/containerd"
+
+# previous release
+previous = "v1.0.0-beta.2"
+
+pre_release = true
+
+preface = """\
+After rounding out the feature set in beta.2, we have taken a number of stability fixes.
+
+This release contains mostly bug fixes, code cleanup and improvements to useability of
+the client and ctr tool."""
+
+# notable prs to include in the release notes, 1234 is the pr number
+[notes]
+
+[breaking]
diff --git a/version/version.go b/version/version.go
index ce3120acf..4899b1ba9 100644
--- a/version/version.go
+++ b/version/version.go
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ var (
 	Package = "github.com/containerd/containerd"
 
 	// Version holds the complete version number. Filled in at linking time.
-	Version = "1.0.0-beta.2+unknown"
+	Version = "1.0.0-beta.3+unknown"
 
 	// Revision is filled with the VCS (e.g. git) revision being used to build
 	// the program at linking time.