React 19.3 Makes View Transitions and Fragment Refs Stable

What happened

The React team published React 19.3 to npm on 9 September 2026. The announcement says the two APIs previewed as experimental last year, View Transitions and Fragment Refs, are now stable, and lists further changes in React DOM and React Server Components.

What we know

• The new <ViewTransition> component animates elements as they enter, exit, move or resize, using the browser's View Transition API. React picks an enter, exit, update or share animation depending on how the tree changed.
• Only updates marked as Transitions animate: state updates inside startTransition, a <Suspense> reveal, or an update from useDeferredValue. Urgent updates render immediately without animation.
• The default is a cross-fade. Animations can be customised with a View Transition Class defined in CSS, or imperatively through the Web Animations API via onEnter, onExit, onShare and onUpdate event props. addTransitionType lets one state update choose different animations, for example forward versus backward navigation in a carousel.
• <ViewTransition> currently works in the DOM only; the team says React Native support is in progress.
• The post's outline also lists Fragment Refs, a browser() API and Trusted Types support in React DOM, and the ability to render <Context> directly in Server Components.

What is not yet confirmed

This summary covers the View Transitions section of the post in detail; the behaviour of Fragment Refs, browser() and the Trusted Types integration is only listed here as announced. Check the full changelog before relying on those.

Why it matters

View Transitions were the most requested animation primitive since the browser API landed, and a stable React wrapper means frameworks built on React can expose it without experimental flags. Trusted Types support is relevant to teams with strict Content Security Policies that want to forbid unsafe DOM sinks.