diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index 085d9d5..556e497 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -4,6 +4,13 @@
  Changelog
 ===========
 
+.. _unreleased:
+
+Unreleased
+----------
+
+- JSON output from the command-line tool no longer escapes non-ASCII characters, so ``sqlite-utils data.db "select '日本語' as text"`` now outputs ``[{"text": "日本語"}]``. This matches how values were already stored by ``insert`` and how CSV/TSV output already behaved. A new ``--ascii`` option restores the previous behavior of escaping non-ASCII characters, for output destinations that cannot handle UTF-8 - see :ref:`cli_query_json_ascii`. The option is available on the ``query``, ``rows``, ``search``, ``tables``, ``views``, ``triggers``, ``indexes`` and ``memory`` commands. The ``convert --multi --dry-run`` preview and ``plugins`` output also no longer escape non-ASCII characters. (:issue:`625`)
+
 .. _v4_0rc3:
 
 4.0rc3 (2026-07-05)