diff --git a/.github/workflows/test.yaml b/.github/workflows/test.yaml
index 4438e6a61..603953625 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/test.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/test.yaml
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ jobs:
           # nprocs
           - {os: ubuntu-latest , python-version: 3.8, matrix-backend: numpy, nprocs: 2, numpy-version: latest}
           # numpy-version
-          - {os: ubuntu-latest , python-version: 3.8, matrix-backend: numpy, nprocs: 1, numpy-version: 1.15  }
+          - {os: ubuntu-latest , python-version: 3.8, matrix-backend: numpy, nprocs: 1, numpy-version: 1.16  }
       fail-fast: false
     env:
       NUTILS_MATRIX: ${{ matrix.matrix-backend }}
diff --git a/nutils/__init__.py b/nutils/__init__.py
index 9c03bc5fe..6f9aa75e1 100644
--- a/nutils/__init__.py
+++ b/nutils/__init__.py
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 from distutils.version import LooseVersion
 
 assert sys.version_info >= (3, 5)
-assert LooseVersion(numpy.version.version) >= LooseVersion('1.15'), 'nutils requires numpy 1.15 or higher, got {}'.format(numpy.version.version)
+assert LooseVersion(numpy.version.version) >= LooseVersion('1.16'), 'nutils requires numpy 1.16 or higher, got {}'.format(numpy.version.version)
 
 version = '7.0a0'
 version_name = None
diff --git a/nutils/evaluable.py b/nutils/evaluable.py
index 93e7a79bf..47a7d21be 100644
--- a/nutils/evaluable.py
+++ b/nutils/evaluable.py
@@ -1198,8 +1198,7 @@ def _unravel(self, axis, shape):
 
   def _determinant(self, axis1, axis2):
     value = numpy.transpose(self.value, tuple(i for i in range(self.ndim) if i != axis1 and i != axis2) + (axis1, axis2))
-    # NOTE: numpy <= 1.12 cannot compute the determinant of an array with shape [...,0,0]
-    return Constant(numpy.linalg.det(value) if value.shape[-1] else numpy.ones(value.shape[:-2]))
+    return Constant(numpy.linalg.det(value))
 
 class InsertAxis(Array):
 
@@ -1602,8 +1601,7 @@ def _simplified(self):
 
   def evalf(self, arr):
     assert arr.ndim == self.ndim+2
-    # NOTE: numpy <= 1.12 cannot compute the determinant of an array with shape [...,0,0]
-    return numpy.linalg.det(arr) if arr.shape[-1] else numpy.ones(arr.shape[:-2])
+    return numpy.linalg.det(arr)
 
   def _derivative(self, var, seen):
     Finv = swapaxes(inverse(self.func), -2, -1)
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 078e78c78..f9a2feaa4 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@
   long_description = long_description,
   license = 'MIT',
   python_requires = '>=3.5',
-  install_requires = ['numpy>=1.15', 'treelog>=1.0b5', 'stringly'],
+  install_requires = ['numpy>=1.16', 'treelog>=1.0b5', 'stringly'],
   extras_require = dict(
     docs=['Sphinx>=1.6','scipy>=0.13','matplotlib>=1.3'],
     matrix_scipy=['scipy>=0.13'],