diff --git a/changelog.d/+setuptools.removed.md b/changelog.d/+setuptools.removed.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..2c10f08a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog.d/+setuptools.removed.md
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Remove `setuptools` as a runtime dependency; retained for `lint` as `liccheck` still uses `pkg_resources`.
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index fbb7dcea..a1300d63 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@ dependencies = [
     "requests<3.0.0,>=2.9.1",
     "tqdm<5.0.0,>=4.5.0",
     "typing-extensions>=4.7.1; python_version < '3.12'",
-    "setuptools>=60.0",
     "packaging>=21.0",
 ]
 requires-python = ">=3.7"
@@ -171,6 +170,7 @@ lint = [
     "ruff==0.1.15",
     "pytest==6.2.5",
     "liccheck==0.9.2",
+    "setuptools",
 ]
 test = [
     "coverage==7.2.7",