diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index c93ac2e5b19..65ff9f56488 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
+- Release Firestore emulator 1.18.1 which addes a emulator configuration to start with experimental mode (#5942).
 - Run lifecycle hooks for specific codebases. (#6011)
 - Fixed issue causing `firebase emulators:start` to crash in Next.js apps (#6005)
diff --git a/src/emulator/downloadableEmulators.ts b/src/emulator/downloadableEmulators.ts
index 072fb699a58..ca3ec53dbe8 100644
--- a/src/emulator/downloadableEmulators.ts
+++ b/src/emulator/downloadableEmulators.ts
@@ -33,9 +33,9 @@ const EMULATOR_UPDATE_DETAILS: { [s in DownloadableEmulators]: EmulatorUpdateDet
     expectedChecksum: "2fd771101c0e1f7898c04c9204f2ce63",
   },
   firestore: {
-    version: "1.17.4",
-    expectedSize: 64969580,
-    expectedChecksum: "9d580b58e55e57b0cdc3ca8888098d43",
+    version: "1.18.1",
+    expectedSize: 64866257,
+    expectedChecksum: "743211a3e33217fe71dc20aff1fa26a5",
   },
   storage: {
     version: "1.1.3",