diff --git a/RELEASE_NOTES b/RELEASE_NOTES
index b21afd47182..0c14d0368a2 100644
--- a/RELEASE_NOTES
+++ b/RELEASE_NOTES
@@ -3,7 +3,43 @@ For more detailed information, please see the git log.
 
 These release notes can also be consulted at http://easybuild.readthedocs.org/en/latest/Release_notes.html.
 
-The latest version of easybuild-easyblocks provides 159 software-specific easyblocks and 29 generic easyblocks.
+The latest version of easybuild-easyblocks provides 165 software-specific easyblocks and 29 generic easyblocks.
+
+v2.7.0 (March 18th 2016)
+------------------------
+
+feature + bugfix release
+- new easyblocks for 6 software packages that require customized support:
+    ADF (#826), MPICH (#844, #852, #868), mutil (#859), pplacer (#835), psmpi (#852), SNPhylo (#865)
+- various other enhancements, including:
+    - implement support for 'use_pip' in PythonPackage easyblock (#719, #831)
+    - add support in CUDA easyblock to install wrappers for host compilers (#758)
+    - update sanity check for picard version 1.124 and above (#796)
+    - use 'module swap' for all components in CrayToolchain (#823)
+    - update PSI4 easyblock to cope with changed name of PSI4 data dir (#824)
+    - use find_flexlm_license function and avoid defining $CPATH in PGI easyblock (#837)
+    - use find_flexlm_license function in IntelBase generic easyblock (#839)
+    - add unit test to check module file generated by PythonPackage easyblock (#841)
+    - rework MVAPICH2 easyblock on top of new MPICH easyblock (#844)
+    - add CUDA support in CP2K easyblock (#850)
+    - also define $LD in buildopts for GATE (#855)
+    - use find_flexlm_license function in TotalView easyblock (#839)
+    - enhance MakeCp easyblock to also support renaming of files while copying them (#859)
+    - hunt for usable 'python' command in PythonPackage easyblock when system Python is used (#861)
+    - add sanity check in easybuild/__init__.py w.r.t. current working dir (#869)
+    - change suffix of original file to .easybuild when using fileinput in impi easyblock (#870)
+- various bug fixes, including:
+    - make sure Python unicode settings match that of the system Python (#817)
+    - remove FFTW related statements in HPL easyblock, since HPL doesn't require FFTW at all (#822)
+    - use pkg_resources.declare_namespace rather than pkgutil.extend_path to declare 'easybuild' namespaces (#827)
+    - fix license headers: Hercules foundation is now FWO (#836)
+    - fix check for non-empty lib dirs in PythonPackage easyblock (#840)
+    - consider all Python lib dirs in sanity check for libxml2 (#842)
+    - correctly handle deprecated configure options (--with-hwloc/--enable-mpe) in MVAPICH2 easyblock (#853)
+    - use correct configure option for checkpoint/restart in MVAPICH2 easyblock (#854)
+    - ensure list of Python lib dirs always has a 'lib/...' entry (#858)
+    - check whether rpm/rpmrebuild commands are available using 'which', rather than checking for OS deps (#864)
+
 
 v2.6.0 (January 26th 2016)
 --------------------------
diff --git a/easybuild/easyblocks/__init__.py b/easybuild/easyblocks/__init__.py
index 7380d65f095..070efcb0948 100644
--- a/easybuild/easyblocks/__init__.py
+++ b/easybuild/easyblocks/__init__.py
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@
 # recent setuptools versions will *TRANSFORM* something like 'X.Y.Zdev' into 'X.Y.Z.dev0', with a warning like
 #   UserWarning: Normalizing '2.4.0dev' to '2.4.0.dev0'
 # This causes problems further up the dependency chain...
-VERSION = LooseVersion('2.7.0.dev0')
+VERSION = LooseVersion('2.7.0')
 UNKNOWN = 'UNKNOWN'