diff --git a/.Rbuildignore b/.Rbuildignore
index a3586e0f06..117b9b3fb8 100644
--- a/.Rbuildignore
+++ b/.Rbuildignore
@@ -43,3 +43,4 @@ src/vendor/cigraph
 ^AUTHORS-list\.md$
 ^CITATION\.cff$
 ^cran$
+^R/cran\.R$
diff --git a/R/cran.R b/R/cran.R
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..99a8bfee4a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/R/cran.R
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+cran_install <- function() {
+  unlink("cran", recursive = TRUE)
+  dir.create("cran")
+  pak::pak("igraph", lib = "cran", dependencies = FALSE)
+}
diff --git a/tests/testthat/helper.R b/tests/testthat/helper.R
index 139d36b8a3..4426fed441 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/helper.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/helper.R
@@ -25,9 +25,3 @@ expect_that <- function(object, condition, info = NULL, label = NULL) {
     condition(object)
   )
 }
-
-cran_install <- function() {
-  unlink("cran", recursive = TRUE)
-  dir.create("cran")
-  pak::pak("igraph", lib = "cran", dependencies = FALSE)
-}