Notion, a popular US productivity and note-taking app, has announced plans to shut down its service in Russia starting in September.
The decision comes in response to U.S. government sanctions that ban access to certain software products and services in Russia, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
“We understand that this change may be disruptive,” Notion said, advising Russian users to consider exporting their content from the app.
Notion is widely used by students, tech entrepreneurs, and startups to plan tasks, manage team projects, create websites, and build databases.
Companies that have announced they will suspend services in Russia since Russia's invasion of Ukraine include Microsoft, Czech antivirus developer Avast and development platform Docker Hub, citing either moral reasons or economic sanctions imposed by the EU and US.
It's unclear how many people in Russia currently use Notion: in January the company announced that it had reached 1 million users on X, listing the countries where they were located.
The Russian flag was second after Poland, but it's unclear whether the countries were listed randomly or based on number of users. The company did not respond to a request for further comment.
Overall, our community-driven Notion groups have hit 1 million members, with members from every country below (woah!).
🇵🇱🇷🇺🇹🇼🇺🇦🇪🇬🇵🇸🇫🇷🇯🇵🇨🇦🇮🇳🇧🇷🇳🇱🇨🇭🇵🇭🇰🇷 🇵🇹🇸🇬🇺🇸🇬🇧🇲🇽🇪 🇸🇨🇳🇩🇪🇮🇩🇬🇭🇲🇾🇧🇪🇿🇦🇦🇺🇸🇾🇵🇰🇵🇪🇹🇭🇦🇷🇹🇷🇨 🇴🇬🇷🇮🇹🇻🇳🇨🇱🇦🇼 🇱🇰🏴🇲🇲🇦🇭🇲 🇩🇰🇹🇹🇵 🇦🇷🇴🇧🇩🇭🇺🇰🇬🇸🇬 🇮🇪🇦🇿🇨🇿🇮🇱🇳🇬🇵🇱🇸🇪🇦🇹🇸🇰🇪 🇪🇸🇻🇯🇴🇸🇦🇪🇬🇹🇳 🇦🇪🇮🇸🇱🇹🇭🇰🇵 🇫🇰🇿
— Notion (@NotionHQ) January 18, 2023
According to a statement from Notion, Russian users will have access to workspaces until September 8th.
“If the billing information associated with your workspace is currently or has previously been associated with Russia, your workspace will be terminated,” the company said. “This is necessary to comply with sanctions, and updating your account's billing information will not change the restrictions.”
Notion began rejecting Russian card payments in 2022, when many Russian users switched to the free version of the app. In February 2024, users reported that Notion stopped working in Russia without a virtual private network (VPN).
Russian users took to Reddit to express their dissatisfaction with the upcoming suspension.
“I'm a normal Russian university student studying to get out of this cursed place called the Russian Federation,” wrote one local user.
“Today I woke up to a love letter from Notion saying that on September 9th, all of my workspaces are going to be destroyed, simply because life's random generator decided that I was going to be born in a certain area,” they added.
“Honestly this caught me off guard. I have hundreds of databases. I've been in college for 4 years and this happened right before the new semester started. The most ridiculous thing is they didn't even need to do this. My anxiety has increased and my mental health has decreased,” said another user.
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