diff --git a/libcomxml/__init__.py b/libcomxml/__init__.py
index b0582eb..d94e558 100644
--- a/libcomxml/__init__.py
+++ b/libcomxml/__init__.py
@@ -3,7 +3,15 @@
 """libcomxml package"""
 
 try:
-    __version__ = __import__('pkg_resources') \
-        .get_distribution(__name__).version
+    from importlib.metadata import version as _distribution_version
+except ImportError:
+    from pkg_resources import get_distribution as _get_distribution
+
+    def _distribution_version(distribution):
+        return _get_distribution(distribution).version
+
+
+try:
+    __version__ = _distribution_version(__name__)
 except Exception:
-    __version__ = 'unknown'
\ No newline at end of file
+    __version__ = 'unknown'
diff --git a/tests/test_libcomxml.py b/tests/test_libcomxml.py
index 8d16743..9a73a41 100644
--- a/tests/test_libcomxml.py
+++ b/tests/test_libcomxml.py
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 import unittest
 import locale
 import re
+from libcomxml import __version__
 from libcomxml.core import XmlField, XmlModel, clean_xml
 import os
 import sys
@@ -13,6 +14,12 @@
 _ROOT = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
 
 
+class TestPackage(unittest.TestCase):
+
+    def test_version_is_available(self):
+        self.assertNotEqual(__version__, 'unknown')
+
+
 class XMLTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def assertXmlEqual(self, got, want):