C++26 fails its ISO ballot, and contracts are the reason

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Something has happened that, as far as anyone can tell, had never happened before: the C++26 draft has been rejected in its ISO DIS ballot, the step before the standard is published. Robert Seacord, convenor of the C committee, announced it tersely on LinkedIn on 24 October: “Balloting has completed for C++26. Unfortunately it was Disapproved”.

Mateusz Pusz, author of the mp-units library and a member of the Polish national committee, explains it in detail in The result of the C++26 DIS ballot, the sixth post in a series on the dispute behind it. Seacord doesn’t think any language standard from ISO’s SC22 subcommittee has ever failed this ballot, and Daveed Vandevoorde, from the C++ committee’s direction group, wrote that no earlier C++ draft had received even a single vote against.

Cpp on Antonio Cortés (DrZippie)

C++26 fails its ISO ballot, and contracts are the reason