diff -r a2bf6d1e018e Doc/library/json.rst
--- a/Doc/library/json.rst	Fri Mar 18 13:24:15 2016 -0700
+++ b/Doc/library/json.rst	Fri Mar 18 14:18:59 2016 -0700
@@ -121,6 +121,13 @@
 Basic Usage
 -----------
 
+.. attribute:: JSONType
+
+   A type representing JSON data. Due to the lack of support for recursive types
+   in the :mod:`typing` module, the type for what dictionaries and lists can
+   hold is specified as :class:`typing.Any`.
+
+
 .. function:: dump(obj, fp, skipkeys=False, ensure_ascii=True, \
                    check_circular=True, allow_nan=True, cls=None, \
                    indent=None, separators=None, default=None, \
diff -r a2bf6d1e018e Lib/json/__init__.py
--- a/Lib/json/__init__.py	Fri Mar 18 13:24:15 2016 -0700
+++ b/Lib/json/__init__.py	Fri Mar 18 14:18:59 2016 -0700
@@ -98,11 +98,13 @@
 __version__ = '2.0.9'
 __all__ = [
     'dump', 'dumps', 'load', 'loads',
-    'JSONDecoder', 'JSONDecodeError', 'JSONEncoder',
+    'JSONDecoder', 'JSONDecodeError', 'JSONEncoder', 'JSONType'
 ]
 
 __author__ = 'Bob Ippolito <bob@redivi.com>'
 
+import typing as t
+
 from .decoder import JSONDecoder, JSONDecodeError
 from .encoder import JSONEncoder
 
@@ -116,6 +118,9 @@
     default=None,
 )
 
+JSONType = t.Union[str, int, float, bool, None, t.Dict[str, t.Any],
+                   t.List[t.Any]]
+
 def dump(obj, fp, skipkeys=False, ensure_ascii=True, check_circular=True,
         allow_nan=True, cls=None, indent=None, separators=None,
         default=None, sort_keys=False, **kw):