diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 158ff87..c0f1741 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -9,6 +9,10 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 ### Fixed
 
+- Corrected the minimum Android SDK to **API 26**. ML Kit Entity Extraction
+  (`entity-extraction:16.0.0-beta6`) declares `minSdk 26`, so apps at `minSdk 24`
+  failed to build (manifest merge). The library's declared `minSdkVersion` and the
+  README requirement are now `26`.
 - iOS: return UTF-16 offsets from `NSDataDetector` instead of grapheme-cluster
   distances, so `start`/`end` align with JavaScript string indices and Android's
   ML Kit char offsets. Previously mismatched on text containing emoji, accented,
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index ea1d613..5f2a66a 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -127,7 +127,9 @@ Detects entities in the given text using native platform APIs.
 ## Requirements
 
 - iOS 15.1+
-- Android API 24+ (minSdk)
+- Android API 26+ (minSdk) — required by ML Kit Entity Extraction. Set
+  `minSdkVersion = 26` (or higher) in your app; with Expo, use
+  [`expo-build-properties`](https://docs.expo.dev/versions/latest/sdk/build-properties/).
 - Expo SDK 50+ or bare React Native with `expo-modules-core`
 
 ## Contributing
diff --git a/android/build.gradle b/android/build.gradle
index b047d7f..8491832 100644
--- a/android/build.gradle
+++ b/android/build.gradle
@@ -13,7 +13,8 @@ android {
   compileSdkVersion safeExtGet("compileSdkVersion", 34)
 
   defaultConfig {
-    minSdkVersion safeExtGet("minSdkVersion", 24)
+    // ML Kit Entity Extraction (com.google.mlkit:entity-extraction) requires minSdk 26.
+    minSdkVersion safeExtGet("minSdkVersion", 26)
     targetSdkVersion safeExtGet("targetSdkVersion", 34)
   }
 
diff --git a/example/app.json b/example/app.json
index 16b31b1..79e3c7e 100644
--- a/example/app.json
+++ b/example/app.json
@@ -26,6 +26,16 @@
     },
     "web": {
       "favicon": "./assets/favicon.png"
-    }
+    },
+    "plugins": [
+      [
+        "expo-build-properties",
+        {
+          "android": {
+            "minSdkVersion": 26
+          }
+        }
+      ]
+    ]
   }
 }
diff --git a/example/package.json b/example/package.json
index ef3dcc2..840faa2 100644
--- a/example/package.json
+++ b/example/package.json
@@ -9,11 +9,12 @@
     "web": "expo start --web"
   },
   "dependencies": {
-    "react-native-data-detector": "file:..",
     "expo": "~54.0.33",
+    "expo-build-properties": "~1.0.10",
     "expo-status-bar": "~3.0.9",
     "react": "19.1.0",
-    "react-native": "0.81.5"
+    "react-native": "0.81.5",
+    "react-native-data-detector": "file:.."
   },
   "devDependencies": {
     "@types/react": "~19.1.0",