diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 85a9346301c..f3f389805fa 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
   ([#2307](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/2307))
 - Adding OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER environment variable
   ([#2320](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/2320))
+- Add `setuptools` to `install_requires`
+  ([#2334](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/2334))
 - Add otlp entrypoint for log exporter
   ([#2322](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/2322))
 
diff --git a/exporter/opentelemetry-exporter-opencensus/setup.cfg b/exporter/opentelemetry-exporter-opencensus/setup.cfg
index b9dcdbc8202..f770c1e74d9 100644
--- a/exporter/opentelemetry-exporter-opencensus/setup.cfg
+++ b/exporter/opentelemetry-exporter-opencensus/setup.cfg
@@ -46,6 +46,7 @@ install_requires =
     opentelemetry-api ~= 1.3
     opentelemetry-sdk ~= 1.3
     protobuf >= 3.13.0
+    setuptools >= 16.0
 
 [options.packages.find]
 where = src
diff --git a/opentelemetry-api/setup.cfg b/opentelemetry-api/setup.cfg
index 21ae69460b2..ba91efcc5a5 100644
--- a/opentelemetry-api/setup.cfg
+++ b/opentelemetry-api/setup.cfg
@@ -45,6 +45,7 @@ include_package_data = True
 install_requires =
     Deprecated >= 1.2.6
     aiocontextvars; python_version<'3.7'
+    setuptools >= 16.0
 
 [options.packages.find]
 where = src
diff --git a/opentelemetry-sdk/setup.cfg b/opentelemetry-sdk/setup.cfg
index 5606788199c..d1fe563d66e 100644
--- a/opentelemetry-sdk/setup.cfg
+++ b/opentelemetry-sdk/setup.cfg
@@ -45,6 +45,7 @@ include_package_data = True
 install_requires =
     opentelemetry-api == 1.8.0
     opentelemetry-semantic-conventions == 0.27b0
+    setuptools >= 16.0
 
 [options.packages.find]
 where = src