diff --git a/docs/changelog/1953.bugfix.rst b/docs/changelog/1953.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d68fdf516
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/changelog/1953.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Relax importlib requirement to allow version<3 - by :user:`usamasadiq`
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index 4090cadf6..5e7183371 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ install_requires =
     distlib>=0.3.1,<1
     filelock>=3.0.0,<4
     six>=1.9.0,<2   # keep it >=1.9.0 as it may cause problems on LTS platforms
-    importlib-metadata>=0.12,<2;python_version<"3.8"
+    importlib-metadata>=0.12,<3;python_version<"3.8"
     importlib-resources>=1.0;python_version<"3.7"
     pathlib2>=2.3.3,<3;python_version < '3.4' and sys.platform != 'win32'
 python_requires = >=2.7, !=3.0.*, !=3.1.*, !=3.2.*, !=3.3.*