diff --git a/.release-please-manifest.json b/.release-please-manifest.json
index e102ad9c0..32ac6588b 100644
--- a/.release-please-manifest.json
+++ b/.release-please-manifest.json
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 {
-  ".": "7.2.1"
+  ".": "8.0.0"
 }
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 5639ac1d3..3f1ebc32b 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -11,6 +11,23 @@ For more details regarding the individual PRs and contributors, please refer to
 
 ---
 
+## [8.0.0](https://github.com/flixOpt/flixopt/compare/v7.2.1...v8.0.0) (2026-07-23)
+
+
+### ⚠ BREAKING CHANGES
+
+* the serialized clustering format changed - slice dims are now stored as 'period' (was '_period') plus a new 'dim_names' key. Clustering artifacts saved to JSON/netCDF by an older flixopt no longer load for apply_clustering()/expand() in this version; re-run transform.cluster() to regenerate them. Fresh clustering and same-version round-trips are unaffected. Also raises the minimum tsam_xarray to 0.6.4.
+
+### Bug Fixes
+
+* dimension-aware effect-total consistency check ([#745](https://github.com/flixOpt/flixopt/issues/745)) ([2b2720c](https://github.com/flixOpt/flixopt/commit/2b2720c20b5d19f3935759904f2b9199e466493a))
+* load pre-7.0 clustered NetCDF files with legacy original_data refs ([#742](https://github.com/flixOpt/flixopt/issues/742)) ([6962e5e](https://github.com/flixOpt/flixopt/commit/6962e5e066c2f251ed5768a4804b5fe5185aa689))
+
+
+### Code Refactoring
+
+* drop clustering dim-rename layer via tsam-xarray DimNames ([#739](https://github.com/flixOpt/flixopt/issues/739)) ([cc56774](https://github.com/flixOpt/flixopt/commit/cc56774d31e05d637ee40424ec64af276716cc2f))
+
 ## [7.2.1](https://github.com/flixOpt/flixopt/compare/v7.2.0...v7.2.1) (2026-07-21)
 
 
diff --git a/CITATION.cff b/CITATION.cff
index d2f553f05..1389b8ccb 100644
--- a/CITATION.cff
+++ b/CITATION.cff
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ cff-version: 1.2.0
 message: "If you use this software, please cite it as below and consider citing the related publication."
 type: software
 title: "flixopt"
-version: 7.2.1 # x-release-please-version
+version: 8.0.0 # x-release-please-version
 date-released: 2026-07-21
 url: "https://github.com/flixOpt/flixopt"
 repository-code: "https://github.com/flixOpt/flixopt"