diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 38b4cbf0d..070ffe7a4 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ tqdm>=4.38.0,<5.0.0
 pydantic>=1.7.4,!=1.8,!=1.8.1,<1.10.0
 jinja2
 langcodes>=3.2.0,<4.0.0
-rapidfuzz>=2.4.0,<3.0.0
+polyleven>=0.7,<1.0
 # Official Python utilities
 setuptools
 packaging>=20.0
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index a149b1f7e..de58de3bc 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ install_requires =
     requests>=2.13.0,<3.0.0
     pydantic>=1.7.4,!=1.8,!=1.8.1,<1.10.0
     jinja2
-    rapidfuzz>=2.4.0,<3.0.0
+    polyleven>=0.7,<1.0
     # Official Python utilities
     setuptools
     packaging>=20.0
diff --git a/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx b/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx
index 56fd11365..d27397f8b 100644
--- a/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx
+++ b/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ from murmurhash.mrmr cimport hash64
 import re
 import srsly
 import warnings
-from rapidfuzz.distance import Levenshtein
+from polyleven import levenshtein
 
 from ..typedefs cimport attr_t
 from ..structs cimport TokenC
@@ -846,7 +846,7 @@ class _FuzzyPredicate:
             value = token._.get(self.attr)
         else:
             value = token.vocab.strings[get_token_attr_for_matcher(token.c, self.attr)]
-        return bool(Levenshtein.distance(self.value, value) <= self.distance)
+        return bool(levenshtein(self.value, value) <= self.distance)
 
 
 class _RegexPredicate:
@@ -914,8 +914,8 @@ class _SetPredicate:
                 return True
             elif self.distance:
                 for v in self.value:
-                    if Levenshtein.distance(self.vocab.strings[value],
-                                            self.vocab.strings[v]) <= self.distance:
+                    if levenshtein(self.vocab.strings[value],
+                                   self.vocab.strings[v]) <= self.distance:
                         return True
             return False
         elif self.predicate == "NOT_IN":
@@ -923,8 +923,8 @@ class _SetPredicate:
                 return False
             elif self.distance:
                 for v in self.value:
-                    if Levenshtein.distance(self.vocab.strings[value],
-                                            self.vocab.strings[v]) <= self.distance:
+                    if levenshtein(self.vocab.strings[value],
+                                   self.vocab.strings[v]) <= self.distance:
                         return False
             return True
         elif self.predicate == "IS_SUBSET":