diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 644a2a3a8..677bc7c1b 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -38,8 +38,8 @@ dependencies = [
     "chardet",
     "click",
     "pyarrow>=20,<21; python_version < '3.14' and platform_system == 'Linux'",  # Linux needs manylinux2014 wheels on CPython 3.9-3.13
-    "pyarrow>=20; python_version < '3.14' and platform_system != 'Linux'",  # Non-Linux platforms may use newer pyarrow binaries
-    "pyarrow>=22; python_version >= '3.14'",  # 22.x provides cp314 wheels on manylinux_2_28/macOS/Windows
+    "pyarrow>=20,<23; python_version < '3.14' and platform_system != 'Linux'",  # pyarrow 23 removed match_substring_regex (pandas compat)
+    "pyarrow>=22,<23; python_version >= '3.14'",  # 22.x provides cp314 wheels; 23 breaks pandas str ops
 
     # Scientific packages
     "atmosp",