Qubes OS 4.3.0 has been released!

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We’re pleased to announce the stable release of Qubes OS 4.3.0! This minor release includes a host of new features, improvements, and bug fixes. The ISO and associated verification files are available on the downloads page.

What’s new in Qubes 4.3?

  • Dom0 upgraded to Fedora 41 (#9402).
  • Xen upgraded to version 4.19 (#9420).
  • Default Fedora template upgraded to Fedora 42 (older versions not supported).
  • Default Debian template upgraded to Debian 13 (versions older than 12 not supported).
  • Default Whonix templates upgraded to Whonix 18 (older versions not supported).
  • Preloaded disposables (#1512)
  • Device “self-identity oriented” assignment (a.k.a. New Devices API) (#9325)
  • Qubes Windows Tools reintroduced with improved features (#1861).

These are just a few highlights from the many changes included in this release. For a more comprehensive list of changes, see the Qubes OS 4.3 release notes.

How to get Qubes OS 4.3.0

  • If you’d like to install Qubes OS for the first time or perform a clean reinstallation on an existing system, there’s never been a better time to do so! Simply download the Qubes 4.3.0 ISO and follow our installation guide.

  • If you’re currently using Qubes 4.2, learn how to upgrade to Qubes 4.3.

  • If you’re currently using a Qubes 4.3 release candidate (RC), update normally (which includes upgrading any EOL templates and standalones you might have) in order to make your system effectively equivalent to the stable Qubes 4.3.0 release. No reinstallation or other special action is required.

In all cases, we strongly recommend making a full backup beforehand.

Known issues in Qubes OS 4.3.0

Templates restored in 4.3.0 from a pre-4.3 backup may continue to target their original Qubes OS release repos (#8701). After restoring such templates in 4.3.0, you must enter the following additional commands in a dom0 terminal:

sudo qubes-dom0-update -y qubes-dist-upgrade
sudo qubes-dist-upgrade --releasever=4.3 --template-standalone-upgrade -y

This will automatically choose the templates that need to be updated. The templates will be shut down during this process.

Fresh templates on a clean 4.3.0 installation are not affected. Users who perform an in-place upgrade from 4.2 to 4.3 (instead of restoring templates from a backup) are also not affected, since the in-place upgrade process already includes the above fix in stage 4. For more information, see issue #8701.

View the full list of known bugs affecting Qubes 4.3 in our issue tracker.

Support for older releases

In accordance with our release support policy, Qubes 4.2 will remain supported for six months after the release of Qubes 4.3, until 2026-06-21. After that, Qubes 4.2 will no longer receive security updates or bug fixes.

Whonix templates are created and supported by our partner, the Whonix Project. The Whonix Project has set its own support policy for Whonix templates in Qubes. For more information, see the Whonix Support Schedule.

Thank you to our partners, donors, contributors, and testers!

This release would not be possible without generous support from our partners and donors, as well as contributions from our active community members, especially bug reports from our testers. We are eternally grateful to our excellent community for making the Qubes OS Project a great example of open-source collaboration.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2025/12/21/qubes-os-4-3-0-has-been-released/
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@system thanks for everything you guys do! much appreciated!

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Here’s to another QubesOS release! See you again with another new
release in 2 years.

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:christmas_tree: :gift: Thank you! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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Thank you!
Index of /r4.3/templates-community/ is empty, all is still in testing.

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Nice! I completely misunderstood the Release schedule policy so I thought that it would be released in January.

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Does doing a clean install provide advantages over upgrading from 4.2?

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Thank you very much for all your hard work!

In a strange coincidence, QB64 also released v4.3.0 today

Merry Christmas and a (reasonably) secure new year to everyone here!

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In general, a clean installation is simpler and less error-prone, but an in-place upgrade allows you to preserve your customizations.

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2 posts were split to a new topic: Error during 4.3 update at stage 3

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Thanks for the new release. Sadly, after the install, there are no templates at all (the post-install stage of 4.2 was also missing).

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Wow. Time to publish new liteqube (4.3/deb13) on github.

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You may have to re-enable the template repositories under Global Config. The update did disable mine

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10 posts were split to a new topic: What’s new in Qubes 4.3 (Video)

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Thank y’all for the hard work! I decided to do a clean install with Coreboot Heads and it went buttery smooth!

I did notice that in Qubes Global Config, under USB Devices, it spammed me with errors. I noticed that the drop downs were not selected to anything so I just set them all to Always Ask, applied changes, reopened the window, and the errors were gone.

I’m running a NovaCustom V54 with Coreboot+Heads and it shows my laptop is certified to run 4.3. :sunglasses:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years!

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Edit: Moved question to a better place.

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Congratulations team!
I have used so many OSs in my life (a few dozen), and this is truly the best.

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I want to call out the hardware support improvements - My ThinkPad P14s needs no workaround or kludges at all to get a fully functional install - 4.2 needed both Kernel and Xen boot-time arguments in order to get off the ground.

The only thing still missing is the WiFi, which is being discussed in it’s own threads on this forum.

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Thank you all for helping us to have a possibility of privacy

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Thanks for the developer team for this christmas’s present :slight_smile:

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