diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index fe19be962..b406634b5 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# 5.27.0
+# 5.27.0-rc.1
   - Changes from 5.26.0
     - API:
       - ADDED: Add Flatbuffers support to NodeJS bindings. [#6338](https://github.com/Project-OSRM/osrm-backend/pull/6338)
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index af88f99b9..5f9ebd758 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "@project-osrm/osrm",
-  "version": "5.27.0",
+  "version": "5.27.0-rc.1",
   "private": false,
   "description": "The Open Source Routing Machine is a high performance routing engine written in C++14 designed to run on OpenStreetMap data.",
   "dependencies": {