diff --git a/qiskit_machine_learning/VERSION.txt b/qiskit_machine_learning/VERSION.txt
index a3df0a695..6f4eebdf6 100644
--- a/qiskit_machine_learning/VERSION.txt
+++ b/qiskit_machine_learning/VERSION.txt
@@ -1 +1 @@
-0.8.0
+0.8.1