diff --git a/INSTALL.md b/INSTALL.md
index 31d23b5b9..67c2dee60 100644
--- a/INSTALL.md
+++ b/INSTALL.md
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ conda activate maskrcnn_benchmark
 conda install ipython
 
 # maskrcnn_benchmark and coco api dependencies
-pip install ninja yacs cython matplotlib
+pip install -r requirements.txt
 
 # follow PyTorch installation in https://pytorch.org/get-started/locally/
 # we give the instructions for CUDA 9.0
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..a67b697bd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+ninja
+yacs
+cython
+matplotlib
+tqdm