diff --git a/newsfragments/2861.misc.rst b/newsfragments/2861.misc.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..5201818d4f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/newsfragments/2861.misc.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+do not depend on exceptiongroup pre-release
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 5aee42b68a..59b9243c7d 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ dependencies = [
     # cffi 1.14 fixes memory leak inside ffi.getwinerror()
     # cffi is required on Windows, except on PyPy where it is built-in
     "cffi>=1.14; os_name == 'nt' and implementation_name != 'pypy'",
-    "exceptiongroup >= 1.0.0rc9; python_version < '3.11'",
+    "exceptiongroup; python_version < '3.11'",
 ]
 dynamic = ["version"]