diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index fe0088d..5987af7 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ kurversc = ["kurversc==0.1.1"]
 # plus the DFS featurization deps; `tabpfn-rel-local` uses this same extra.
 # setuptools<82 because featuretools -> woodwork imports pkg_resources at import
 # time, and setuptools 82 removed it (81 still ships it).
-rdblearn = ["tabpfn>=8", "fastdfs>=1.1", "setuptools<82"]
+rdblearn = ["tabpfn>=8", "fastdfs>=1.1", "setuptools<84"]
 # rdl: the shared Relational Deep Learning stack for the GNN baselines — PyG + PyTorch
 # Frame + a text embedder, which relbench.modeling.* needs (all lazy-imported inside
 # fit()). GPU recommended. NOTE: PyG neighbor sampling needs `pyg-lib` or `torch-sparse`
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ relgt = ["relarena[rdl]", "einops>=0.8", "h5py>=3.0"]
 # tabpfn-rel-client (the tabpfn-v3-api TFM): DFS locally, fit/predict server-side,
 # text embedded natively by the API — no GPU and no local tabpfn needed.
 tabpfn-rel-local = ["relarena[rdblearn]"]
-tabpfn-rel-api = ["fastdfs>=1.1", "setuptools<82", "tabpfn-client>=0.3.2"]
+tabpfn-rel-api = ["fastdfs>=1.1", "setuptools<84", "tabpfn-client>=0.3.2"]
 # RelArena supports RT execution on Linux x86_64, for which relational-transformer
 # publishes a stable-ABI (abi3-py311) wheel. GPU strongly recommended -- a
 # fine-tune on CPU is not a practical run.
@@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ dev = [
     "lightgbm>=4.0,<4.7",
     "fastdfs>=1.1",
     # Same woodwork/pkg_resources cap as the DFS extras above.
-    "setuptools<82",
+    "setuptools<84",
 ]
 # The "cuda" and "cpu" groups switch between the cuda and CPU-only versions of torch.
 # With no group, torch comes from "dependencies" above via pypi, which is the cuda
diff --git a/uv.lock b/uv.lock
index 1460661..dbdd8f1 100644
--- a/uv.lock
+++ b/uv.lock
@@ -2508,8 +2508,8 @@ requires-dist = [
     { name = "relbench", specifier = "==2.1.2" },
     { name = "scikit-learn", specifier = ">=1.3" },
     { name = "sentence-transformers", marker = "extra == 'rdl'" },
-    { name = "setuptools", marker = "extra == 'rdblearn'", specifier = "<82" },
-    { name = "setuptools", marker = "extra == 'tabpfn-rel-api'", specifier = "<82" },
+    { name = "setuptools", marker = "extra == 'rdblearn'", specifier = "<84" },
+    { name = "setuptools", marker = "extra == 'tabpfn-rel-api'", specifier = "<84" },
     { name = "tabpfn", marker = "extra == 'rdblearn'", specifier = ">=8" },
     { name = "tabpfn-client", marker = "extra == 'tabpfn-rel-api'", specifier = ">=0.3.2" },
     { name = "torch" },
@@ -2527,7 +2527,7 @@ dev = [
     { name = "pre-commit", specifier = ">=4.0" },
     { name = "pytest", specifier = ">=9.1.1" },
     { name = "ruff", specifier = "==0.15.13" },
-    { name = "setuptools", specifier = "<82" },
+    { name = "setuptools", specifier = "<84" },
 ]
 
 [[package]]
@@ -2823,11 +2823,11 @@ wheels = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "setuptools"
-version = "81.0.0"
+version = "83.0.0"
 source = { registry = "https://pypi.org/simple" }
-sdist = { url = "https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/0d/1c/73e719955c59b8e424d015ab450f51c0af856ae46ea2da83eba51cc88de1/setuptools-81.0.0.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:487b53915f52501f0a79ccfd0c02c165ffe06631443a886740b91af4b7a5845a", size = 1198299, upload-time = "2026-02-06T21:10:39.601Z" }
+sdist = { url = "https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/34/26/f5d29e25ffdb535afef2d35cdb55b325298f96debd670da4c325e08d70f4/setuptools-83.0.0.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:025bccbbf0fa05b6192bc64ae1e7b16e001fd6d6d4d5de03c97b1c1ade523bef", size = 1154254, upload-time = "2026-07-04T15:31:22.699Z" }
 wheels = [
-    { url = "https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/e1/e3/c164c88b2e5ce7b24d667b9bd83589cf4f3520d97cad01534cd3c4f55fdb/setuptools-81.0.0-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:fdd925d5c5d9f62e4b74b30d6dd7828ce236fd6ed998a08d81de62ce5a6310d6", size = 1062021, upload-time = "2026-02-06T21:10:37.175Z" },
+    { url = "https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/5d/40/e1e72872c6354b306daef1703549e8e83b4d43cfea356311bf722a043752/setuptools-83.0.0-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:29b23c360f22f414dc7336bb39178cc7bcbf6021ed2733cde173f09dba19abb3", size = 1008090, upload-time = "2026-07-04T15:31:20.885Z" },
 ]
 
 [[package]]