diff --git a/pandas_gbq/features.py b/pandas_gbq/features.py
index ad20c640..4b70a14a 100644
--- a/pandas_gbq/features.py
+++ b/pandas_gbq/features.py
@@ -23,15 +23,15 @@ def __init__(self):
     @property
     def bigquery_installed_version(self):
         import google.cloud.bigquery
-        import pkg_resources
+        import packaging.version
 
         if self._bigquery_installed_version is not None:
             return self._bigquery_installed_version
 
-        self._bigquery_installed_version = pkg_resources.parse_version(
+        self._bigquery_installed_version = packaging.version.parse(
             google.cloud.bigquery.__version__
         )
-        bigquery_minimum_version = pkg_resources.parse_version(BIGQUERY_MINIMUM_VERSION)
+        bigquery_minimum_version = packaging.version.parse(BIGQUERY_MINIMUM_VERSION)
 
         if self._bigquery_installed_version < bigquery_minimum_version:
             raise ImportError(
@@ -45,68 +45,68 @@ def bigquery_installed_version(self):
 
     @property
     def bigquery_has_accurate_timestamp(self):
-        import pkg_resources
+        import packaging.version
 
-        min_version = pkg_resources.parse_version(BIGQUERY_ACCURATE_TIMESTAMP_VERSION)
+        min_version = packaging.version.parse(BIGQUERY_ACCURATE_TIMESTAMP_VERSION)
         return self.bigquery_installed_version >= min_version
 
     @property
     def bigquery_has_bignumeric(self):
-        import pkg_resources
+        import packaging.version
 
-        min_version = pkg_resources.parse_version(BIGQUERY_SUPPORTS_BIGNUMERIC_VERSION)
+        min_version = packaging.version.parse(BIGQUERY_SUPPORTS_BIGNUMERIC_VERSION)
         return self.bigquery_installed_version >= min_version
 
     @property
     def bigquery_has_from_dataframe_with_csv(self):
-        import pkg_resources
+        import packaging.version
 
-        bigquery_from_dataframe_version = pkg_resources.parse_version(
+        bigquery_from_dataframe_version = packaging.version.parse(
             BIGQUERY_FROM_DATAFRAME_CSV_VERSION
         )
         return self.bigquery_installed_version >= bigquery_from_dataframe_version
 
     @property
     def bigquery_needs_date_as_object(self):
-        import pkg_resources
+        import packaging.version
 
-        max_version = pkg_resources.parse_version(BIGQUERY_NO_DATE_AS_OBJECT_VERSION)
+        max_version = packaging.version.parse(BIGQUERY_NO_DATE_AS_OBJECT_VERSION)
         return self.bigquery_installed_version < max_version
 
     @property
     def pandas_installed_version(self):
         import pandas
-        import pkg_resources
+        import packaging.version
 
         if self._pandas_installed_version is not None:
             return self._pandas_installed_version
 
-        self._pandas_installed_version = pkg_resources.parse_version(pandas.__version__)
+        self._pandas_installed_version = packaging.version.parse(pandas.__version__)
         return self._pandas_installed_version
 
     @property
     def pandas_has_deprecated_verbose(self):
-        import pkg_resources
+        import packaging.version
 
         # Add check for Pandas version before showing deprecation warning.
         # https://github.com/pydata/pandas-gbq/issues/157
-        pandas_verbosity_deprecation = pkg_resources.parse_version(
+        pandas_verbosity_deprecation = packaging.version.parse(
             PANDAS_VERBOSITY_DEPRECATION_VERSION
         )
         return self.pandas_installed_version >= pandas_verbosity_deprecation
 
     @property
     def pandas_has_boolean_dtype(self):
-        import pkg_resources
+        import packaging.version
 
-        desired_version = pkg_resources.parse_version(PANDAS_BOOLEAN_DTYPE_VERSION)
+        desired_version = packaging.version.parse(PANDAS_BOOLEAN_DTYPE_VERSION)
         return self.pandas_installed_version >= desired_version
 
     @property
     def pandas_has_parquet_with_lossless_timestamp(self):
-        import pkg_resources
+        import packaging.version
 
-        desired_version = pkg_resources.parse_version(
+        desired_version = packaging.version.parse(
             PANDAS_PARQUET_LOSSLESS_TIMESTAMP_VERSION
         )
         return self.pandas_installed_version >= desired_version
diff --git a/pandas_gbq/gbq.py b/pandas_gbq/gbq.py
index d4a8d2b7..dbb9e5b5 100644
--- a/pandas_gbq/gbq.py
+++ b/pandas_gbq/gbq.py
@@ -35,9 +35,9 @@
 
 def _test_google_api_imports():
     try:
-        import pkg_resources  # noqa
+        import packaging  # noqa
     except ImportError as ex:  # pragma: NO COVER
-        raise ImportError("pandas-gbq requires setuptools") from ex
+        raise ImportError("pandas-gbq requires db-dtypes") from ex
 
     try:
         import db_dtypes  # noqa
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 9c71c3c5..d0b16c2e 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -41,6 +41,7 @@
     # indefinitely. https://github.com/pydata/pandas-gbq/issues/343
     "google-cloud-bigquery >=3.3.5,<4.0.0dev,!=2.4.*",
     "google-cloud-bigquery-storage >=2.16.2,<3.0.0dev",
+    "packaging >=20.0.0",
 ]
 extras = {
     "tqdm": "tqdm>=4.23.0",
@@ -63,7 +64,7 @@
 # benchmarks, etc.
 packages = [
     package
-    for package in setuptools.PEP420PackageFinder.find()
+    for package in setuptools.find_namespace_packages()
     if package.startswith("pandas_gbq")
 ]
 
diff --git a/testing/constraints-3.7.txt b/testing/constraints-3.7.txt
index dc26cdee..2a4141bd 100644
--- a/testing/constraints-3.7.txt
+++ b/testing/constraints-3.7.txt
@@ -17,3 +17,4 @@ pyarrow==3.0.0
 pydata-google-auth==1.5.0
 tqdm==4.23.0
 protobuf==3.19.5
+packaging==20.0.0
diff --git a/tests/system/test_gbq.py b/tests/system/test_gbq.py
index bc078264..7afa4ae9 100644
--- a/tests/system/test_gbq.py
+++ b/tests/system/test_gbq.py
@@ -14,19 +14,15 @@
 import pandas.testing as tm
 from pandas import DataFrame
 
-try:
-    import pkg_resources  # noqa
-except ImportError:
-    raise ImportError("Could not import pkg_resources (setuptools).")
-import pytest
 import pytz
+import pytest
 
 from pandas_gbq import gbq
 import pandas_gbq.schema
 
 
 TABLE_ID = "new_test"
-PANDAS_VERSION = pkg_resources.parse_version(pandas.__version__)
+PANDAS_VERSION = packaging.version.parse(pandas.__version__)
 
 
 def test_imports():