diff --git a/tests/test_for_experimental/test_for_tabular.py b/tests/test_for_experimental/test_for_tabular.py
index 84fea9f0..63dcb498 100644
--- a/tests/test_for_experimental/test_for_tabular.py
+++ b/tests/test_for_experimental/test_for_tabular.py
@@ -67,19 +67,6 @@ def test_read_tsv(table, tmpdir):
     ).all()
 
 
-def test_read_xls(table, tmpdir):
-    filename = str(tmpdir.mkdir("data").join("table.xls"))
-    table.to_excel(filename, index=False, engine="xlwt")
-    df = read_tabular(filename)
-    assert (df["integer"] == table["integer"]).all()
-    assert isclose(df["numeric"], table["numeric"]).all()
-    assert (df["comments"].isnull() == table["comments"].isnull()).all()
-    assert (
-        df.loc[df["comments"].notnull(), "comments"]
-        == table.loc[table["comments"].notnull(), "comments"]
-    ).all()
-
-
 def test_read_xlsx(table, tmpdir):
     filename = str(tmpdir.mkdir("data").join("table.xlsx"))
     table.to_excel(filename, index=False, engine="openpyxl")
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 5ae92e1d..877ef4ed 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -17,7 +17,6 @@ deps =
     pytest-cov
     pytest-xdist
     xlrd
-    xlwt
 commands =
     pytest --cov=memote --cov-report=term {posargs}