How to Install `sympy` in Python

v1.14.0 Data & Science Python >=3.9 BSD

Computer algebra system (CAS) in Python

Install pip install sympy

What is sympy?

Computer algebra system (CAS) in Python

See the AUTHORS file for the list of authors.

And many more people helped on the SymPy mailing list, reported bugs, helped organize SymPy's participation in the Google Summer of Code, the Google Highly Open Participation Contest, Google Code-In, wrote and blogged about SymPy...

License: New BSD License (see the LICENSE file for details) covers all files in the sympy repository unless stated otherwise.

Documentation → PyPI page → Author: SymPy development team

Quick Start

Minimal example to get started with sympy:

from sympy import symbols, solve, diff

x = symbols("x")
expr = x**2 - 5*x + 6

print(solve(expr, x))   # [2, 3]
print(diff(expr, x))    # 2*x - 5

Installation

pip (standard)

pip install sympy

Virtual environment (recommended)

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

pip3

pip3 install sympy

conda

conda install -c conda-forge sympy

Poetry

poetry add sympy

Dependencies

Installing sympy will also install these packages:

mpmath

Verify the Installation

After installing, confirm the package is available:

python -c "import sympy; print(sympy.__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 sympy with pip.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'sympy'

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

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

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'sympy' (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 sympy to install into the interpreter you are running.

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

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

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

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 sympy. 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 sympy

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 sympy

MemoryError when loading data

Cause: Dataset is too large to fit in RAM.

Fix: Read in chunks, filter columns on load, or consider Polars/Dask for out-of-core processing.

Recent Releases

Version	Released
`1.14.0` latest	2025-04-27
`1.14.0rc2`	2025-04-25
`1.14.0rc1`	2025-04-14
`1.13.3`	2024-09-18
`1.13.2`	2024-08-11

Full release history on PyPI →

Manage sympy

Upgrade to latest version

pip install --upgrade sympy

Install a specific version

pip install sympy==1.14.0

Uninstall

pip uninstall sympy

Check what is installed

pip show sympy

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

How to Install sympy in Python