diff --git a/.Rbuildignore b/.Rbuildignore
index d45805370..8e7736ff2 100644
--- a/.Rbuildignore
+++ b/.Rbuildignore
@@ -21,3 +21,4 @@
 ^revdep$
 ^index\.md$
 ^LICENSE\.md$
+^CRAN-RELEASE$
diff --git a/CRAN-RELEASE b/CRAN-RELEASE
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..7a2adfb16
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CRAN-RELEASE
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+This package was submitted to CRAN on 2020-05-05.
+Once it is accepted, delete this file and tag the release (commit a03a0affb1).