diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index 9126132d7a3..b7c36b60967 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -43,7 +43,6 @@ install_requires =
     numpy>=1.14.5
     packaging>=20.9
     pyparsing>0.0  # hard dependency to MPL. We require it (unconstrained) in case MPL drops it in the future
-    setuptools>=19.6
     tomli>=1.2.3
     tomli-w>=0.4.0
     tqdm>=3.4.0