diff --git a/.github/workflows/tests.yml b/.github/workflows/tests.yml
index 58be50da40..aa01abb874 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/tests.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/tests.yml
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ jobs:
     strategy:
       fail-fast: false
       matrix:
-        python-version: [3.9, "3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
+        python-version: ["3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
         subset: ["data_tests", "inference_tests", "test_aux", "test_text"]
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v4
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ jobs:
       - name: Unit tests
         run: |
           resolution=highest
-          if [ "${{ matrix.python-version }}" == "3.9" ]; then
+          if [ "${{ matrix.python-version }}" == "3.10" ]; then
             resolution=lowest-direct
           fi
           uv run --resolution=$resolution --extra server --extra languages make ${{ matrix.subset }}
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ jobs:
     strategy:
       fail-fast: false
       matrix:
-        python-version: ["3.9", "3.12"]
+        python-version: ["3.10", "3.12"]
         subset: ["test_tts", "test_tts2", "test_vocoder", "test_xtts"]
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v4
@@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ jobs:
       - name: Integration tests
         run: |
           resolution=highest
-          if [ "${{ matrix.python-version }}" == "3.9" ]; then
+          if [ "${{ matrix.python-version }}" == "3.10" ]; then
             resolution=lowest-direct
           fi
           uv run --resolution=$resolution --extra server --extra languages make ${{ matrix.subset }}
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c0843b731d..db8868b26d 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -116,7 +116,7 @@ You can also help us implement more models.
 <!-- start installation -->
 ## Installation
 
-🐸TTS is tested on Ubuntu 24.04 with **python >= 3.9, < 3.13**, but should also
+🐸TTS is tested on Ubuntu 24.04 with **python >= 3.10, < 3.13**, but should also
 work on Mac and Windows.
 
 If you are only interested in [synthesizing speech](https://coqui-tts.readthedocs.io/en/latest/inference.html) with the pretrained 🐸TTS models, installing from PyPI is the easiest option.
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index fa58e5b934..95a1cead69 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ name = "coqui-tts"
 version = "0.25.3"
 description = "Deep learning for Text to Speech."
 readme = "README.md"
-requires-python = ">=3.9, <3.13"
+requires-python = ">=3.10, <3.13"
 license = {text = "MPL-2.0"}
 authors = [
     {name = "Eren Gölge", email = "egolge@coqui.ai"}
@@ -39,7 +39,6 @@ maintainers = [
 classifiers = [
     "Programming Language :: Python",
     "Programming Language :: Python :: 3",
-    "Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9",
     "Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10",
     "Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11",
     "Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12",
@@ -88,7 +87,7 @@ dependencies = [
     "encodec>=0.1.1",
     # XTTS
     "num2words>=0.5.14",
-    "spacy[ja]>=3,<3.8",
+    "spacy[ja]>=3.2,<3.8",
 ]
 
 [project.optional-dependencies]
@@ -116,7 +115,7 @@ ko = [
 ]
 # Japanese
 ja = [
-    "mecab-python3>=1.0.2",
+    "mecab-python3>=1.0.6",
     "unidic-lite==1.0.8",
     "cutlet>=0.2.0",
 ]
@@ -233,7 +232,7 @@ max-returns = 7
 
 [tool.black]
 line-length = 120
-target-version = ['py39']
+target-version = ['py310']
 
 [tool.coverage.report]
 skip_covered = true