Python 2 was officially retired in April 2020 and even security fixes won't be released afterwards. Robot Framework continuing to support it much long does not make sense, and the Robot Framework Foundation has decided that it will not sponsor Robot Framework development targeting Python 2 anymore in 2021. The main reason we don't want to be more aggressive removing Python 2 support is that it would also drop Jython support.

When Python 2 support is removed, also support for Python 3.5 and older will be removed. This eases development by making it possible to take into use newer Python features, most notably f-strings. Python 3.5 will also reach its end-of-life in September 2020, a lot before the expected Robot Framework 5.0 release.

The current Python version support plan is as follows:

• Robot Framework 3.2 supports Python 2.7 as well as Python 3.4 and newer. This covers also all RF 3.2.x bug fix releases.

• Robot Framework 4.0 planned for late 2020 still supports Python 2.7 as well as Python 3.5 and newer. This covers also RF 4.0.x bug fix releases and possible RF 4.x feature releases.

• Robot Framework 5.0 will support only Python 3.6 and newer.