Results are reported of direct‐write X‐ray lithography using a hard X‐ray beam focused by a Fresnel zone plate with an outermost zone width of 40 nm. An X‐ray beam at 7.5 keV focused to a nano‐spot was employed to write arbitrary patterns on a photoresist thin film with a resolution better than 25 nm. The resulting pattern dimension depended significantly on the kind of underlying substrate, which was attributed to the lateral spread of electrons generated during X‐ray irradiation. The proximity effect originated from the diffuse scattering near the focus and electron blur was also observed, which led to an increase in pattern dimension. Since focusing hard X‐rays to below a 10 nm spot is currently available, the direct‐write hard X‐ray lithography developed in this work has the potential to be a promising future lithographic method.