diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 52844ce..6efdae6 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -76,6 +76,7 @@ setup(
     cmdclass = {'build_py' : BuildPy},
     author='Simon Glass',
     author_email='sjg@chromium.org',
+    setup_requires = ['swig'],
     description='Python binding for libfdt',
     ext_modules=[libfdt_module],
     package_dir={'': os.path.join(srcdir, 'pylibfdt')},