diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index b22c1dd620..4831fe875f 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ License: MIT + file LICENSE
 URL: https://lintr.r-lib.org, https://github.com/r-lib/lintr
 BugReports: https://github.com/r-lib/lintr/issues
 Depends:
-    R (>= 3.6)
+    R (>= 4.0)
 Imports:
     backports (>= 1.1.7),
     cli (>= 3.4.0),
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 39cc847a59..f09fbe60e7 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -86,6 +86,7 @@
 ## Notes
 
 * All user-facing messages are now prepared using the `{cli}` package (#2418, @IndrajeetPatil). All messages have been reviewed and updated to be more informative and consistent.
+* {lintr} now depends on R version 4.0.0. It already does so implicitly due to recursive upstream dependencies requiring this version; we've simply made that dependency explicit and up-front (#2569, @MichaelChirico).
 
 # lintr 3.1.2
 
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-lint_package.R b/tests/testthat/test-lint_package.R
index f0d2c0c485..957b8af9c3 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-lint_package.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-lint_package.R
@@ -231,9 +231,6 @@ test_that("package using .lintr.R config lints correctly", {
 })
 
 test_that("lintr need not be attached for .lintr.R configs to use lintr functions", {
-  # For some obscure reason, running in the subprocess on this specific version of R
-  #   on Windows stopped working after PR #2446 with 'Package lintr not found'.
-  if (getRversion() == "3.6.3") skip_on_os("windows")
   exprs <- paste(
     'options(lintr.linter_file = "lintr_test_config")',
     sprintf('lints <- lintr::lint_package("%s")', test_path("dummy_packages", "RConfig")),