diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index dbb4d17..e667d66 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+[build-system]
+requires = ["setuptools>=21.0.0"]
+build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
+
 # pytest options
 [tool.pytest.ini_options]
 minversion = "9.0"
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index c2586a5..afb66d3 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-setuptools >= 21.0.0
 urllib3 >= 1.15.1
 requests >= 2.33.0
 wasmtime ~= 30.0.0