diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index 4b6cf9d6742f3e4d65e3328939f7ce9704adfb19..b672fab95191813acefb464755479ec1fa350901 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
-include LICENSE README.rst bootstrap.py buildout.cfg
+include LICENSE README.rst bootstrap.py buildout.cfg version.txt
 recursive-include doc conf.py *.rst
 recursive-include bob *.cpp *.h
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index fd22ec0027d9272141bf9b1c8d4e109d18e94ae0..580ef281ea73d62c6a3a90e5070ce1e1bb8f20a1 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -8,10 +8,13 @@
 
 from setuptools import setup, find_packages
 
+# Define package version
+version = open("version.txt").read().rstrip()
+
 setup(
 
     name="bob.extension",
-    version="2.0.0a0",
+    version=version,
     description="Building of Python/C++ extensions for Bob",
     url='http://github.com/bioidiap/bob.extension',
     license="BSD",
diff --git a/version.txt b/version.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..82d45615df23a942b7d374ee020d3b4fbdf53939
--- /dev/null
+++ b/version.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+2.0.0a3