diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index e00b8d86..88c9b72e 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -5,3 +5,4 @@ pandas
 pyyaml
 xlrd
 xlwt
+dbfpy
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 4e65dd2e..c655e38a 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -39,6 +39,7 @@
     'xlrd',
     'xlwt',
     'pyyaml',
+    'dbfpy',
 ]
 
 
diff --git a/tablib/compat.py b/tablib/compat.py
index 660697d1..07c372de 100644
--- a/tablib/compat.py
+++ b/tablib/compat.py
@@ -32,7 +32,6 @@
     from tablib.packages.statistics import median
     from itertools import izip_longest
     from backports import csv
-    import tablib.packages.dbfpy as dbfpy
 
     unicode = unicode
     xrange = xrange
diff --git a/tablib/formats/_dbf.py b/tablib/formats/_dbf.py
index 710797db..95b61bbb 100644
--- a/tablib/formats/_dbf.py
+++ b/tablib/formats/_dbf.py
@@ -7,18 +7,19 @@
 import os
 
 from tablib.compat import StringIO
-from tablib.compat import dbfpy
 from tablib.compat import is_py3
 
 if is_py3:
+    from tablib.compat import dbfpy
     from tablib.packages.dbfpy3 import dbf
     from tablib.packages.dbfpy3 import dbfnew
     from tablib.packages.dbfpy3 import record as dbfrecord
     import io
 else:
-    from tablib.packages.dbfpy import dbf
-    from tablib.packages.dbfpy import dbfnew
-    from tablib.packages.dbfpy import record as dbfrecord
+    import dbfpy
+    from dbfpy import dbf
+    from dbfpy import dbfnew
+    from dbfpy import record as dbfrecord
 
 
 title = 'dbf'