diff --git a/earthdiagnostics/config.py b/earthdiagnostics/config.py
index d6480355d84e43a7e06b5aac479391f2026bdd69..7340daddb28c84f093cf149a883f914f746117df 100644
--- a/earthdiagnostics/config.py
+++ b/earthdiagnostics/config.py
@@ -604,7 +604,6 @@ class ExperimentConfig(object):
 
     def _parse_startdates(self, parser):
         startdates = parser.get_list_option("EXPERIMENT", "STARTDATES")
-        import exrex
 
         self.startdates = []
         for startdate_pattern in startdates:
@@ -614,9 +613,7 @@ class ExperimentConfig(object):
             if startdate_pattern[0] == "{" and startdate_pattern[-1] == "}":
                 self._read_startdates(startdate_pattern[1:-1])
             else:
-                for startdate in exrex.generate(startdate_pattern):
-                    startdate = startdate.strip()
-                    self.startdates.append(startdate)
+                self.startdates.append(startdate_pattern)
 
     def _parse_members(self):
         members = []
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index b5a06b99e86e20834fa29310b71028b0e79bb595..f4571a319913c9d946200bd3bb8344714a42f65e 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -25,7 +25,6 @@ REQUIREMENTS = {
         "cfgrib",
         "dask[array]",
         "diagonals",
-        "exrex",
         "netCDF4",
         "nco>=0.0.3",
         "numba",
diff --git a/test/unit/test_config.py b/test/unit/test_config.py
index 73102e2201e3316459df34a6d98f017966a97d04..5e4a1ae658d68feca96adfc1591f9a380c883701 100644
--- a/test/unit/test_config.py
+++ b/test/unit/test_config.py
@@ -492,34 +492,6 @@ class TestExperimentConfig(TestCase):
         config.parse_ini(self.mock_parser)
         self.assertEqual(config.startdates, ["20001101", "20011101"])
 
-        self.mock_parser.add_value("EXPERIMENT", "STARTDATES", "200(0|1)1101")
-        config = ExperimentConfig()
-        config.parse_ini(self.mock_parser)
-        self.assertEqual(config.startdates, ["20001101", "20011101"])
-
-        self.mock_parser.add_value(
-            "EXPERIMENT", "STARTDATES", "200[0-2](02|05|08|11)01"
-        )
-        config = ExperimentConfig()
-        config.parse_ini(self.mock_parser)
-        self.assertEqual(
-            config.startdates,
-            [
-                u"20000201",
-                u"20000501",
-                u"20000801",
-                u"20001101",
-                u"20010201",
-                u"20010501",
-                u"20010801",
-                u"20011101",
-                u"20020201",
-                u"20020501",
-                u"20020801",
-                u"20021101",
-            ],
-        )
-
     def test_auto_startdates(self):
         """
         Test parsing startdates using the automatic generation