diff --git a/cmake/dependencies.cmake b/cmake/dependencies.cmake
index ae2832b..186fbed 100644
--- a/cmake/dependencies.cmake
+++ b/cmake/dependencies.cmake
@@ -61,7 +61,10 @@ endif ()
 # we don't want to include tests of dependencies, so we need to do some manual work
 
 if (SCN_USE_EXTERNAL_SIMDUTF)
-    find_package(simdutf 4.0.0 CONFIG REQUIRED)
+    find_package(simdutf 5.0.0 CONFIG)
+    if(NOT simdutf_FOUND)
+        find_package(simdutf 4.0.0 CONFIG REQUIRED)
+    endif()
 else ()
     FetchContent_Declare(
             simdutf
