diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index b8ba5f5e7d0d4..03b5901494b82 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -5,7 +5,8 @@ requires = [
     "setuptools>=61.0.0",
     "wheel",
     # Must be kept in sync with `project.dependencies`
-    "cffi>=1.12; platform_python_implementation != 'PyPy'",
+    "cffi==1.16.0rc1 ; platform_python_implementation != 'PyPy' and python_version > '3.7'",
+    "cffi>=1.12 ; platform_python_implementation != 'PyPy' and python_version <= '3.7'",
     "setuptools-rust>=1.7.0",
 ]
 build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
@@ -46,7 +47,8 @@ classifiers = [
 requires-python = ">=3.7"
 dependencies = [
     # Must be kept in sync with `build-system.requires`
-    "cffi >=1.12",
+    "cffi==1.16.0rc1 ; python_version > '3.7'",
+    "cffi>=1.12 ; python_version <= '3.7'",
 ]
 
 [project.urls]
@@ -158,4 +160,4 @@ git-only = [
     "ci-constraints-requirements.txt",
     ".gitattributes",
     ".gitignore",
-]
\ No newline at end of file
+]