diff --git a/conda-store-server/pyproject.toml b/conda-store-server/pyproject.toml
index 1b1aa8d29..43e63abee 100644
--- a/conda-store-server/pyproject.toml
+++ b/conda-store-server/pyproject.toml
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ dependencies = [
   # pinning them; conda-lock depends on this, but also doesn't pin the setuptools
   # version. See https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/4478 for details
   "setuptools<70",
-  "sqlalchemy<2.0a0",
+  "sqlalchemy>=2.0,<2.1",
   "traitlets",
   "uvicorn",
   "yarl",
diff --git a/conda-store-server/tests/test_api.py b/conda-store-server/tests/test_api.py
index d9ee5c96f..ee1c8063a 100644
--- a/conda-store-server/tests/test_api.py
+++ b/conda-store-server/tests/test_api.py
@@ -126,30 +126,30 @@ def test_namespace_role_mapping(db):
     assert len(api.list_namespaces(db).all()) == 1
 
     # Creates role mappings with valid entity names
-    NamespaceRoleMapping(
+    db.add(NamespaceRoleMapping(
         namespace=namespace,
         namespace_id=namespace.id,
         entity="org/*",
         role="editor",
-    )
-    NamespaceRoleMapping(
+    ))
+    db.add(NamespaceRoleMapping(
         namespace=namespace,
         namespace_id=namespace.id,
         entity="*/team",
         role="editor",
-    )
-    NamespaceRoleMapping(
+    ))
+    db.add(NamespaceRoleMapping(
         namespace=namespace,
         namespace_id=namespace.id,
         entity="org/team",
         role="editor",
-    )
-    NamespaceRoleMapping(
+    ))
+    db.add(NamespaceRoleMapping(
         namespace=namespace,
         namespace_id=namespace.id,
         entity="*/*",
         role="editor",
-    )
+    ))
 
     # Check that the namespace role mappings were correctly inserted;
     # this will fail if they were not correctly instantiated.
@@ -157,15 +157,11 @@ def test_namespace_role_mapping(db):
 
     # Create a role mapping with a failing entity
     with pytest.raises(Exception):
-        NamespaceRoleMapping(
+        db.add(NamespaceRoleMapping(
             namespace=namespace,
             namespace_id=namespace.id,
             entity="invalid_entity_name",
-        )
-
-    # This should fail because of the invalid entity instantiation above
-    with pytest.raises(IntegrityError):
-        db.commit()
+        ))
 
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize(
diff --git a/recipe/meta.yaml b/recipe/meta.yaml
index b37e443a7..2bc1450c5 100644
--- a/recipe/meta.yaml
+++ b/recipe/meta.yaml
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ outputs:
         - pyyaml >=6.0.1
         - redis-py
         - requests
-        - sqlalchemy <2.0a0
+        - sqlalchemy >=2.0,<2.1
         - traitlets
         - uvicorn
         - yarl