diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index 85ecdd135..4be62895f 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ Homepage: http://scrapy.org/
 Package: scrapy-SUFFIX
 Architecture: all
 Depends: ${python:Depends}, python-lxml, python-twisted, python-openssl,
- python-w3lib (>= 1.2), python-queuelib, python-cssselect (>= 0.9), python-six (>=1.5.2)
+ python-w3lib (>= 1.8.0), python-queuelib, python-cssselect (>= 0.9), python-six (>=1.5.2)
 Recommends: python-setuptools
 Conflicts: python-scrapy, scrapy, scrapy-0.11
 Provides: python-scrapy, scrapy
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 0df9a558c..005b8f4f5 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -2,6 +2,6 @@ Twisted>=10.0.0
 lxml
 pyOpenSSL
 cssselect>=0.9
-w3lib>=1.2
+w3lib>=1.8.0
 queuelib
 six>=1.5.2
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 20d54b658..38ef6c4cc 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ deps =
     pyOpenSSL>=0.13.1
     cssselect>=0.9
     queuelib>=1.1.1
-    w3lib>=1.5
+    w3lib>=1.8.0
     Pillow
     # tests requirements
     mock