diff --git a/infra/ansible/roles/kube_vip/defaults/main.yml b/infra/ansible/roles/kube_vip/defaults/main.yml
index a89bb9a..9718a4e 100644
--- a/infra/ansible/roles/kube_vip/defaults/main.yml
+++ b/infra/ansible/roles/kube_vip/defaults/main.yml
@@ -13,8 +13,8 @@
 kube_vip_address: "192.168.1.49"
 
 # Image pinned deliberately — a version bump is a code change (verified tag on
-# ghcr.io). v0.8.9 is a current v0.8.x release.
-kube_vip_version: "v0.8.9"
+# ghcr.io). v1.2.3 is the current stable release (k8s-1.36 catch-up from v0.8.9).
+kube_vip_version: "v1.2.3"
 kube_vip_image: "ghcr.io/kube-vip/kube-vip:{{ kube_vip_version }}"
 
 kube_vip_namespace: "kube-system"