Do I need to import React for stateless functional components?

Question

All around me (e.g. blog posts, code) I see code for React stateless functional components in which React is imported even though it's never used.

import React from 'react';

function MyComponent() {
  return Howdy!;
}

export default MyComponent;

I'm wondering why we need to import React when it's not actually used (in any explicit manner).

I'm also surprised that my linter doesn't complain about the un-used import.

Is there some reason to import React into functional components that I'm not aware of?

user_2580686 · Answer

As of now you don't need to import React from 'react'; for functional components. Why you needed it is well explained in accepted answer.

This official blog post https://reactjs.org/blog/2020/09/22/introducing-the-new-jsx-transform.html explains why it was needed and now after version 17 it is no longer needed.

user_13063503 · Answer

No, you don't need to, React 17 does it automatically with the help of out of the box JSX Transform.