diff --git a/.gitmodules b/.gitmodules
index ced1d11..e69de29 100644
--- a/.gitmodules
+++ b/.gitmodules
@@ -1,4 +0,0 @@
-[submodule "pybind11"]
-    path = pybind11
-    url = https://github.com/pybind/pybind11.git
-    branch = master
diff --git a/.pre-commit-config.yaml b/.pre-commit-config.yaml
index 23dc004..30e5773 100644
--- a/.pre-commit-config.yaml
+++ b/.pre-commit-config.yaml
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ repos:
     - id: mypy
       files: "setup.py"
       args: []
-      additional_dependencies: [types-setuptools]
+      additional_dependencies: [types-setuptools, pybind11]
 
 # Changes tabs to spaces
 - repo: https://github.com/Lucas-C/pre-commit-hooks
diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 69122df..8eb2c68 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.4...3.18)
 project(cmake_example)
 
-add_subdirectory(pybind11)
+find_package(pybind11)
 pybind11_add_module(cmake_example src/main.cpp)
 
 # EXAMPLE_VERSION_INFO is defined by setup.py and passed into the C++ code as a
diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index 71dbebb..a1240fd 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -1,5 +1,3 @@
-include README.md LICENSE pybind11/LICENSE
-graft pybind11/include
-graft pybind11/tools
+include README.md LICENSE
 graft src
 global-include CMakeLists.txt *.cmake
diff --git a/pybind11 b/pybind11
deleted file mode 160000
index 914c06f..0000000
--- a/pybind11
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-Subproject commit 914c06fb252b6cc3727d0eedab6736e88a3fcb01
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index fd92373..1dabc68 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ requires = [
     "wheel",
     "ninja",
     "cmake>=3.12",
+    "pybind11>=2.9.2",
 ]
 build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
 
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 03f97fb..3037bce 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
 import sys
 from pathlib import Path
 
+from pybind11 import get_cmake_dir
 from setuptools import Extension, setup
 from setuptools.command.build_ext import build_ext
 
@@ -46,6 +47,7 @@ def build_extension(self, ext: CMakeExtension) -> None:
         # from Python.
         cmake_args = [
             f"-DCMAKE_LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY={extdir}{os.sep}",
+            f"-Dpybind11_DIR={get_cmake_dir()}",
             f"-DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE={sys.executable}",
             f"-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE={cfg}",  # not used on MSVC, but no harm
         ]