diff --git a/lalinference/debian/control.in b/lalinference/debian/control.in
index 1c6f99c274ea29e2f37ef6bc88d3412cd59ac8e6..77bb115751a2f5c7271a5084ecb5f6fec85fc2f9 100644
--- a/lalinference/debian/control.in
+++ b/lalinference/debian/control.in
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 9),
   python-scipy (>= 0.8),
   python-seaborn,
   python-shapely,
+  python-pytest,
   swig (>= 3.0.7),
   zlib1g-dev,
   python-glue (>= @MIN_GLUE_VERSION@),
diff --git a/lalinference/lalinference.spec.in b/lalinference/lalinference.spec.in
index aa762c9d4357ed7bc0f271294e95203686ae01b0..09acddf19ed9a52b1361e369310173df8234a9a5 100644
--- a/lalinference/lalinference.spec.in
+++ b/lalinference/lalinference.spec.in
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ BuildRequires: healpy >= 1.9.1
 BuildRequires: python-astropy >= 1.1.1
 BuildRequires: python-matplotlib >= 1.2.0
 BuildRequires: python-shapely
+BuildRequires: pytest
 BuildRequires: libmetaio-devel
 BuildRequires: libxml2-devel
 BuildRequires: numpy >= 1.7