diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index b4e2ee18f..27d9d4b02 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,22 @@
 # Changelog
 
+## 1.6.3
+
+**Release date:** 2026-07-23
+
+This patch release fixes empty lines vanishing from rendered chart manifests,
+and releases being marked as tested when their Helm test hooks never ran.
+
+Fixes:
+- Fix vanishing empty lines
+  [#1545](https://github.com/fluxcd/helm-controller/pull/1545)
+- Fix `HasBeenTested` for all corner cases
+  [#1548](https://github.com/fluxcd/helm-controller/pull/1548)
+
+Improvements:
+- ci: parallelize e2e job to speed it up
+  [#1543](https://github.com/fluxcd/helm-controller/pull/1543)
+
 ## 1.6.2
 
 **Release date:** 2026-07-07
diff --git a/config/manager/kustomization.yaml b/config/manager/kustomization.yaml
index acc000060..c608f7214 100644
--- a/config/manager/kustomization.yaml
+++ b/config/manager/kustomization.yaml
@@ -5,4 +5,4 @@ resources:
 images:
   - name: fluxcd/helm-controller
     newName: fluxcd/helm-controller
-    newTag: v1.6.2
+    newTag: v1.6.3
diff --git a/go.mod b/go.mod
index 2ef7b71d2..7075429d6 100644
--- a/go.mod
+++ b/go.mod
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ replace helm.sh/helm/v4 => github.com/fluxcd/helm/v4 v4.2.4-flux.1
 require (
 	github.com/Masterminds/semver/v3 v3.5.0
 	github.com/fluxcd/cli-utils v1.2.2
-	github.com/fluxcd/helm-controller/api v1.6.2
+	github.com/fluxcd/helm-controller/api v1.6.3
 	github.com/fluxcd/pkg/apis/acl v0.10.0
 	github.com/fluxcd/pkg/apis/event v0.27.1
 	github.com/fluxcd/pkg/apis/kustomize v1.19.1