diff --git a/dev-python/requests/requests-2.26.0.ebuild b/dev-python/requests/requests-2.26.0.ebuild
index b7f083336e7ef..97902378064af 100644
--- a/dev-python/requests/requests-2.26.0.ebuild
+++ b/dev-python/requests/requests-2.26.0.ebuild
@@ -1,7 +1,8 @@
 # Copyright 1999-2021 Gentoo Authors
 # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
 
-EAPI=8
+# please keep this ebuild at EAPI 7 -- sys-apps/portage dep
+EAPI=7
 
 PYTHON_COMPAT=( python3_{8..10} pypy3 )
 PYTHON_REQ_USE="threads(+)"