How to Install `celery` in Python

v5.6.3 General Purpose Python >=3.9 BSD-3-Clause

Distributed Task Queue.

Install pip install celery

What is celery?

Distributed Task Queue.

:Web: :Download: :Source: :DeepWiki: |deepwiki| :Keywords: task, queue, job, async, rabbitmq, amqp, redis, python, distributed, actors

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Documentation → PyPI page → Author: Ask Solem

Quick Start

Minimal example to get started with celery:

from celery import Celery

app = Celery("tasks", broker="redis://localhost:6379/0")

@app.task
def add(x, y):
    return x + y

# Call the task asynchronously
result = add.delay(4, 6)
print(result.get())  # 10
# Start worker: celery -A tasks worker --loglevel=info

Installation

pip (standard)

pip install celery

Virtual environment (recommended)

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate   # Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install celery

pip3

pip3 install celery

conda

conda install -c conda-forge celery

Poetry

poetry add celery

Dependencies

Installing celery will also install these packages:

billiard kombu vine click click-didyoumean click-repl click-plugins python-dateutil exceptiongroup tzlocal

Verify the Installation

After installing, confirm the package is available:

python -c "import celery; print(celery.__version__)"

If this prints a version number, installation succeeded. If you see a ModuleNotFoundError, see the errors section below.

Installation Errors

Common errors when installing celery with pip.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'celery'

Cause: The package is not installed in the current Python environment.

Fix: Run pip install celery. If using a virtual environment, ensure it is activated first.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'celery' (installed but still failing)

Cause: pip installed the package into a different Python than the one running your script.

Fix: Use python -m pip install celery to install into the interpreter you are running.

ImportError: cannot import name 'X' from 'celery'

Cause: The function or class does not exist in the installed version.

Fix: Check the version with pip show celery and upgrade with pip install --upgrade celery.

pip: command not found

Cause: pip is not in PATH or Python was not added to PATH during installation.

Fix: Try python -m pip install celery. On macOS/Linux try pip3.

PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied

Cause: No write access to the system Python package directory.

Fix: Use a virtual environment, or add --user: pip install --user celery

SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED

Cause: pip cannot verify PyPI's SSL certificate — common behind corporate proxies.

Fix: Try: pip install --trusted-host pypi.org --trusted-host files.pythonhosted.org celery

Runtime Errors

Common errors when using celery after installation.

kombu.exceptions.OperationalError: Connection refused

Cause: The message broker (Redis or RabbitMQ) is not running.

Fix: Start the broker: redis-server. Check the broker URL in your Celery config.

celery.exceptions.NotRegistered: task_name

Cause: The task module was not imported before the worker started.

Fix: Use app.autodiscover_tasks(['myapp']) or import task modules explicitly in celery.py.

Recent Releases

Version	Released
`5.6.3` latest	2026-03-26
`5.6.2`	2026-01-04
`5.6.1`	2025-12-29
`5.6.0`	2025-11-30
`5.6.0rc2`	2025-11-22

Full release history on PyPI →

Manage celery

Upgrade to latest version

pip install --upgrade celery

Install a specific version

pip install celery==5.6.3

Uninstall

pip uninstall celery

Check what is installed

pip show celery

Last updated: 2026-04-11 • Data from PyPI

How to Install celery in Python