diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 30cc60acbb..daca9696c4 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ dependencies = [              # F39 / PyPI
     "requests>=2.25.1",       # 2.28.2 / 2.31.0
     "ruamel.yaml>=0.16.6",    # 0.17.32 / 0.17.32
     "urllib3>=1.26.5, <3.0",  # 1.26.16 / 2.0.4
+    "setuptools>=53.0.0",     # 53.0.0 is the one available with RHEL9
     "typing-extensions>=4.9.0; python_version < '3.13'",
     ]