diff --git a/.arclint b/.arclint
--- a/.arclint
+++ b/.arclint
@@ -273,6 +273,7 @@
         },
         "lint-python-mypy": {
             "type": "lint-python-mypy",
+            "version": ">=0.780",
             "include": "(\\.py$)",
             "exclude": "(^contrib/)",
             "flags": [
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -133,7 +133,7 @@
 
 On Ubuntu (>= 18.04+updates):
 ```
-sudo apt-get install clang-format-8 clang-tidy-8 clang-tools-8 cppcheck mypy python3-autopep8 flake8 php-codesniffer yamllint
+sudo apt-get install clang-format-8 clang-tidy-8 clang-tools-8 cppcheck python3-autopep8 flake8 php-codesniffer yamllint
 ```
 
 On Debian (>= 10), the clang-8 family of tools is available from the `buster-backports` repository:
@@ -154,6 +154,16 @@
 ln -s $PWD/clang+llvm-8.0.0-x86_64-apple-darwin/bin/clang-tidy /usr/local/bin/clang-tidy
 ```
 
+If you are modifying a python script, you will need to install `mypy`. The minimum required version is 0.780, because
+the previous ones are known to have issues with some python type annotations.
+On Debian based systems, this can be installed via:
+```
+sudo apt-get install python3-pip
+pip3 install mypy==0.780
+echo "export PATH=\"`python3 -m site --user-base`/bin:\$PATH\"" >> ~/.bashrc
+source ~/.bashrc
+```
+
 If you are modifying a shell script, you will need to install the `shellcheck` linter.
 A recent version is required and may not be packaged for your distribution.
 Standalone binaries are available for download on
diff --git a/contrib/utils/install-dependencies.sh b/contrib/utils/install-dependencies.sh
--- a/contrib/utils/install-dependencies.sh
+++ b/contrib/utils/install-dependencies.sh
@@ -58,7 +58,6 @@
   libzmq3-dev
   lld
   make
-  mypy
   ninja-build
   nsis
   php-codesniffer
@@ -123,6 +122,12 @@
 # For running Python test suites
 pip3 install pytest
 
+# An up-to-date mypy is required as a python linter
+pip3 install mypy==0.780
+echo "export PATH=\"$(python3 -m site --user-base)/bin:\$PATH\"" >> ~/.bashrc
+# shellcheck source=/dev/null
+source ~/.bashrc
+
 # Install pandoc. The version from buster is outdated, so get a more recent one
 # from github.
 wget https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/download/2.10.1/pandoc-2.10.1-1-amd64.deb