What causes "Python 3.8 or later is required" in pypa/pip?

Upgrade the Python interpreter to 3.8 or newer (3.8 itself is EOL — prefer 3.10+).

pypa/pip · critical · RuntimeError

Python 3.8 or later is required

Error message

Python 3.8 or later is required

What it means

A module-level guard at the top of pkg_resources.__init__ that raises RuntimeError if the running Python interpreter is older than 3.8. Because it executes at import time, importing pkg_resources (or any code that imports it) on Python 3.7 or earlier immediately aborts with this message. pkg_resources is deprecated and has dropped support for old Python versions.

Solutions

Upgrade the Python interpreter to 3.8 or newer (3.8 itself is EOL — prefer 3.10+).
Update the base Docker image to one shipping a supported Python version.
Pin to an older pkg_resources/setuptools/pip release that supports your interpreter only as a temporary bridge, then migrate.

Example fix

// before
# Dockerfile
FROM python:3.7-slim
RUN pip install setuptools
// after
FROM python:3.11-slim
RUN pip install setuptools

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

import sys
if sys.version_info < (3, 8):
    raise SystemExit('Python 3.8+ required; current: ' + sys.version)
import pkg_resources

Prevention

Declare python_requires='>=3.8' in your packaging config.
Pin CI/Docker base images to Python 3.10+.
Document the minimum Python version prominently.

When it happens

Trigger: Running `import pkg_resources` on CPython 3.7 or older; running a tool that transitively imports pip._vendor.pkg_resources on a legacy interpreter.

Common situations: A CI job or Docker image still pinned to Python 3.7; a system Python on an older OS (e.g. older Debian/Ubuntu) where a script invokes pip/setuptools vendored pkg_resources; upgrading pip/setuptools on an old Python.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of pypa/pip@f399c37189 (2026-08-08). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9dee09ca8339d240. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources/__init__.py:28

to have their path parts separated with ``/``, *not* whatever the local
path separator is.  Do not use os.path operations to manipulate resource
names being passed into the API.

The package resource API is designed to work with normal filesystem packages,
.egg files, and unpacked .egg files.  It can also work in a limited way with
.zip files and with custom PEP 302 loaders that support the ``get_data()``
method.

This module is deprecated. Users are directed to :mod:`importlib.resources`,
:mod:`importlib.metadata` and :pypi:`packaging` instead.
"""

from __future__ import annotations

import sys

if sys.version_info < (3, 8):  # noqa: UP036 # Check for unsupported versions
    raise RuntimeError("Python 3.8 or later is required")

import os
import io
import time
import re
import types
from typing import (
    Any,
    Literal,
    Dict,
    Iterator,
    Mapping,
    MutableSequence,
    NamedTuple,
    NoReturn,
    Tuple,
    Union,
    TYPE_CHECKING,

View on GitHub (pinned to f399c37189)