diff --git a/studio/backend/requirements/no-torch-runtime.txt b/studio/backend/requirements/no-torch-runtime.txt
index 85294114b1..4e8dc46512 100644
--- a/studio/backend/requirements/no-torch-runtime.txt
+++ b/studio/backend/requirements/no-torch-runtime.txt
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ h11
 # Unpinned resolves to 0.23.1+ which breaks `from transformers import
 # AutoConfig`; transformers 4.56..5.3 declares tokenizers<=0.23.0.
 tokenizers<=0.23.0
-transformers>=4.51.3,!=4.52.0,!=4.52.1,!=4.52.2,!=4.52.3,!=4.53.0,!=4.54.0,!=4.55.0,!=4.55.1,!=4.57.0,!=4.57.4,!=4.57.5,!=5.0.0,!=5.1.0,<=5.3.0
+transformers!=4.52.0,!=4.52.1,!=4.52.2,!=4.52.3,!=4.53.0,!=4.54.0,!=4.55.0,!=4.55.1,!=4.57.0,!=4.57.4,!=4.57.5,>=5.0.0rc3,!=5.0.0,!=5.1.0,<=5.3.0
 trl>=0.18.2,!=0.19.0,<=0.24.0
 sentence-transformers
 cut_cross_entropy
diff --git a/studio/backend/requirements/single-env/constraints.txt b/studio/backend/requirements/single-env/constraints.txt
index 156f78567e..a761a2754e 100644
--- a/studio/backend/requirements/single-env/constraints.txt
+++ b/studio/backend/requirements/single-env/constraints.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Single-env pins for unsloth + studio + data-designer
 # Keep compatible with unsloth transformers bounds.
-transformers==4.57.6
+transformers==5.0.0rc3
 trl==0.23.1
 huggingface-hub==0.36.2
 
diff --git a/studio/backend/requirements/single-env/overrides-darwin-arm64.txt b/studio/backend/requirements/single-env/overrides-darwin-arm64.txt
index 2cd03d8b78..3e0f5e5dea 100644
--- a/studio/backend/requirements/single-env/overrides-darwin-arm64.txt
+++ b/studio/backend/requirements/single-env/overrides-darwin-arm64.txt
@@ -2,4 +2,4 @@
 # main venv's constraints.txt pin transformers==4.57.6 and forces uv to
 # backtrack unsloth. Relax to match the pin -- per-model 5.x routing
 # happens at runtime via the side-car venvs.
-transformers>=4.57.6
+transformers>=5.0.0rc3