diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index ba2e0d579380..1e91f415a68e 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -1161,7 +1161,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "qiskit-accelerate"
-version = "1.2.2"
+version = "1.2.3"
 dependencies = [
  "ahash 0.8.11",
  "approx",
@@ -1189,7 +1189,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "qiskit-circuit"
-version = "1.2.2"
+version = "1.2.3"
 dependencies = [
  "bytemuck",
  "hashbrown 0.14.5",
@@ -1203,7 +1203,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "qiskit-pyext"
-version = "1.2.2"
+version = "1.2.3"
 dependencies = [
  "pyo3",
  "qiskit-accelerate",
@@ -1214,7 +1214,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "qiskit-qasm2"
-version = "1.2.2"
+version = "1.2.3"
 dependencies = [
  "hashbrown 0.14.5",
  "num-bigint",
@@ -1224,7 +1224,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "qiskit-qasm3"
-version = "1.2.2"
+version = "1.2.3"
 dependencies = [
  "hashbrown 0.14.5",
  "indexmap",
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index e1ced58c9862..6ff57c6395b9 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ members = ["crates/*"]
 resolver = "2"
 
 [workspace.package]
-version = "1.2.2"
+version = "1.2.3"
 edition = "2021"
 rust-version = "1.70"  # Keep in sync with README.md and rust-toolchain.toml.
 license = "Apache-2.0"
diff --git a/docs/conf.py b/docs/conf.py
index 572e125d3614..9323f3513763 100644
--- a/docs/conf.py
+++ b/docs/conf.py
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@
 # The short X.Y version
 version = "1.2"
 # The full version, including alpha/beta/rc tags
-release = "1.2.2"
+release = "1.2.3"
 
 language = "en"
 
diff --git a/qiskit/VERSION.txt b/qiskit/VERSION.txt
index 23aa8390630c..0495c4a88cae 100644
--- a/qiskit/VERSION.txt
+++ b/qiskit/VERSION.txt
@@ -1 +1 @@
-1.2.2
+1.2.3
diff --git a/releasenotes/notes/prepare-1.2.3-1386aaab85a3fde0.yaml b/releasenotes/notes/prepare-1.2.3-1386aaab85a3fde0.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..6680ebf97e0b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releasenotes/notes/prepare-1.2.3-1386aaab85a3fde0.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+---
+prelude: >
+    Qiskit 1.2.3 is a patch release fixing a problem in QPY that could cause files generated by
+    one Python environment to fail to load in a different Python environment, despite the format
+    supposedly being transferable.  This is related to differences in the version of the library
+    ``symengine``, which QPY should have protected against.