diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 2f7ed2f..8c31565 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+## 0.26.0 / 2023-12-06
+
+* [CHANGE] Update dependencies: prometheus/common, client model, and Go 1.21
+* [FEATURE] Add option to honor original labels from event tags over labels specified in mapping configuration ([#521](https://github.com/prometheus/statsd_exporter/pull/521))
+
+Thank you @rabenhorst for the `honor_labels` contribution!
+
 ## 0.25.0 / 2023-10-23
 
 * [CHANGE] Update `client_golang` ([#508](https://github.com/prometheus/statsd_exporter/pull/508), [#513](https://github.com/prometheus/statsd_exporter/pull/513))
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 2285594..d6cd1f3 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -97,6 +97,9 @@ The exporter parses all tagging formats by default, but individual tagging forma
 --no-statsd.parse-signalfx-tags
 ```
 
+By default, labels explicitly specified in configuration take precedence over labels from tags.
+To set the label from the statsd event tag, use [`honor_labels`](#honor-labels).
+
 ## Building and Running
 
 NOTE: Version 0.7.0 switched to the [kingpin](https://github.com/alecthomas/kingpin) flags library. With this change, flag behaviour is POSIX-ish:
@@ -354,6 +357,13 @@ mappings:
     code: "$1"
 ```
 
+### Honor labels
+
+By default, labels specified in the mapping configuration take precedence over tags in the statsd event.
+
+To set the label value to the original tag value, if present, specify `honor_labels: true` in the mapping configuration.
+In this case, the label specified in the mapping acts as a default.
+
 ### StatsD timers and distributions
 
 By default, statsd timers and distributions (collectively "observers") are
diff --git a/VERSION b/VERSION
index d21d277..4e8f395 100644
--- a/VERSION
+++ b/VERSION
@@ -1 +1 @@
-0.25.0
+0.26.0