diff --git a/spacy/vocab.pyx b/spacy/vocab.pyx
index 023d0bd89..aec01f239 100644
--- a/spacy/vocab.pyx
+++ b/spacy/vocab.pyx
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@ import io
 import math
 import json
 import tempfile
-import copy_reg
 
 from .lexeme cimport EMPTY_LEXEME
 from .lexeme cimport Lexeme
@@ -29,6 +28,11 @@ from . import util
 from .serialize.packer cimport Packer
 from .attrs cimport PROB
 
+try:
+    import copy_reg
+except ImportError:
+    import copyreg as copy_reg
+
 
 DEF MAX_VEC_SIZE = 100000