diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..28a13ef
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+[build-system]
+requires = ["setuptools", "GitPython"]
+build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 6d1d42c..a602c7a 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -8,11 +8,21 @@
 def git_version(version):
     """Return version with local version identifier."""
     import git
-    repo = git.Repo('.git')
+
+    try:
+        repo = git.Repo('.git')
+    except git.NoSuchPathError:
+        # Not in a git repo, assume install through PyPI / source distribution
+        return version
+
     repo.git.status()
     # assert versions are increasing
-    latest_tag = repo.git.describe(
-        match='v[0-9]*', tags=True, abbrev=0)
+    try:
+        latest_tag = repo.git.describe(
+            match='v[0-9]*', tags=True, abbrev=0)
+    except git.exc.GitCommandError:
+        # No tags found
+        latest_tag = version
     assert parse_version(latest_tag) <= parse_version(version), (
         latest_tag, version)
     sha = repo.head.commit.hexsha[:8]