diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 233618fc418..4c98adbc735 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@
     "tqdm>=4.0.0",
     "toposort>=1.0",
     "GPUtil>=1.4.0",
-    "protobuf>=3.12.2,<=3.20.3",
+    "protobuf>=3.12.2",
     "click>=7.1.2,!=8.0.0",  # latest version < 8.0 + blocked version with reported bug
 ]
 _nm_deps = [f"{'sparsezoo' if is_release else 'sparsezoo-nightly'}~={version_nm_deps}"]