diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 73a7b9a..d4a49d4 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -17,7 +17,6 @@ dependencies = [
     "rich>=13.0",
     "pyyaml>=6.0",
     "sqlparse>=0.5.0",
-    "revenueholdings-license>=0.1.0",
 ]
 
 [project.optional-dependencies]
@@ -26,6 +25,7 @@ dev = [
     "pytest-cov>=4.0",
 ]
 mcp = ["mcp>=1.0"]
+license = ["revenueholdings-license>=0.1.0"]
 
 [project.scripts]
 schemaforge = "schemaforge.cli:main"
diff --git a/src/schemaforge/cli.py b/src/schemaforge/cli.py
index a6d2074..b1d513f 100644
--- a/src/schemaforge/cli.py
+++ b/src/schemaforge/cli.py
@@ -6,7 +6,13 @@
 
 import click
 
-from revenueholdings_license import require_license
+try:
+    from revenueholdings_license import require_license
+except ImportError:
+    import warnings
+    warnings.warn("revenueholdings-license not installed; license checks skipped", stacklevel=2)
+    def require_license(product: str) -> None:  # type: ignore[misc]
+        pass
 
 from .convert import convert_schema
 from .diff import diff_schemas