diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index ea60835d4..6d0a01dc8 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ welding_schema = "weldx.asdf.cli.welding_schema:main"
 [build-system]
 requires = [
   "wheel",
-  "setuptools >= 40.9.0",
+  "setuptools >= 64",
   "setuptools_scm[toml]>=6.2",
 ]
 build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
deleted file mode 100644
index 91a481a2e..000000000
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,2 +0,0 @@
-# this is empty on purpose to enable editable (development) installs
-# xref: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/69711606/how-to-install-a-package-using-pip-in-editable-mode-with-pyproject-toml