At the start of each year, on January 1st, a new crop of works enter the public domain and become free to enjoy, share, and reuse for any purpose. Due to differing copyright laws around the world, there is no one single public domain — and here we focus on three of the most prominent. Newly entering the public domain in 2026 will be:

• works by people who died in 1955, for countries with a copyright term of “life plus 70 years” (e.g. UK, Russia, most of EU and South America);
• works by people who died in 1975, for countries with a term of “life plus 50 years” (e.g. New Zealand, and most of Africa and Asia);
• films and books (incl. artworks featured) published in 1930 for the United States.

In our advent-style calendar below, find our top pick of what lies in store for 2026. Each day, as we move through December, we’ll open a new window to reveal our highlights! By public domain day on January 1st they will all be unveiled — look out for a special blogpost from us on that day. (And, of course, if you want to dive straight in and explore the vast swathe of new entrants for yourself, just visit the links above).

• Check out John Mark Ockerbloom’s own “Public Domain Day Countdown” on Mastodon, and summarised in his blogpost.
• See the selection from Standard eBooks of works entering the US in 2026, all of which they've made available to read for free.
• Read more about what makes the public domain so important in Communia’s Public Domain Manifesto.
• Wondering if “bad things happen to works when they enter the public domain”? Wonder no more.