diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index ed30965b..6d76704f 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -11,3 +11,8 @@ __pycache__
 .coverage
 /.cache
 /.venv
+/.eggs
+
+
+# auto-generated by setuptools_scm
+/pytestqt/_version.py
diff --git a/docs/conf.py b/docs/conf.py
index 3b7186be..7dae585b 100644
--- a/docs/conf.py
+++ b/docs/conf.py
@@ -47,14 +47,10 @@
 # |version| and |release|, also used in various other places throughout the
 # built documents.
 #
-import re
-with open('../pytestqt/__init__.py') as f:
-    m = re.search("version = '(.*)'", f.read())
-    assert m is not None
-version = m.group(1)
+import pkg_resources
+version = pkg_resources.get_distribution('pytest-qt').version
 # The short X.Y version.
 # The full version, including alpha/beta/rc tags.
-release = version
 
 # The language for content autogenerated by Sphinx. Refer to documentation
 # for a list of supported languages.
diff --git a/pytestqt/__init__.py b/pytestqt/__init__.py
index 0fbc62be..0b666df0 100644
--- a/pytestqt/__init__.py
+++ b/pytestqt/__init__.py
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-version = '2.0.0'
+# _version is automatically generated by setuptools_scm
+from pytestqt._version import version
 __version__ = version
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index bc63902f..147f0bc9 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -23,15 +23,8 @@ def run_tests(self):
         errno = pytest.main([])
         sys.exit(errno)
 
-
-with open('pytestqt/__init__.py') as f:
-    m = re.search("version = '(.*)'", f.read())
-    assert m is not None
-    version = m.group(1)
-
 setup(
     name="pytest-qt",
-    version=version,
     packages=['pytestqt'],
     entry_points={
         'pytest11': ['pytest-qt = pytestqt.plugin'],
@@ -47,6 +40,8 @@ def run_tests(self):
     license="MIT",
     keywords="pytest qt test unittest",
     url="http://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-qt",
+    use_scm_version={'write_to': 'pytestqt/_version.py'},
+    setup_requires=['setuptools_scm'],
     classifiers=[
         'Development Status :: 5 - Production/Stable',
         'Framework :: Pytest',