Notion exits Russia and will terminate accounts in September

Notion has announced it will exit the Russian market and is terminating all workspaces and accounts identified linked to users in the country.

In an announcement on its website, Notion says the decision was taken due to U.S.-government imposed restrictions on software service providers, making it practically impossible to continue operating in Russia.

“The U.S. government has introduced restrictions prohibiting access to certain software products and services to any person in Russia,” reads the announcement.

“Due to these restrictions, on September 9, 2024, Notion will no longer provide users located in Russia access to the platform.”

Notion is a popular productivity tool combining note-taking, document creation, task management, databases, and various real-time collaboration tools under a single platform. As of 2024, it is estimated that Notion is used by over 30 million people worldwide.

Notion will now delete all Russian-based accounts on its platform and nuke workspaces in the country, giving users until September 8 to extract their data. After that date, there will be no way for impacted users to access or retrieve their data at Notion.

Instructions on how to export content or entire workspaces from Notion can be found on this official help page, covering PDF, HTML, and CSV exports.

Some exporting restrictions may apply to Enterprise workspace members, as admins may have disabled this option from the settings to keep workspace data internal. If that is the case, users will not see an export option at all.

Also, in cases of very large files, Notion may send an email with a download link instead of serving the download directly from the platform.

The software platform clarified that workspace owners not based in Russia and collaborating with users from the country will not have their workspaces deleted. However, their Russia-based collaborators will not be allowed to access it after the set deadline.

Subscription plans for impacted users will be unilaterally terminated on September 9, 2024, and no further charges from Notion will encumber the owners.

Impacted users have also received email notices of the upcoming closure of their accounts, as Notion informed them directly two weeks prior.