diff --git a/holoviews/core/util.py b/holoviews/core/util.py
index 194882f42b..5273e96a17 100644
--- a/holoviews/core/util.py
+++ b/holoviews/core/util.py
@@ -2178,13 +2178,13 @@ def cftime_to_timestamp(date, time_unit='us'):
         time_unit since 1970-01-01 00:00:00
     """
     import cftime
-    utime = cftime.utime('microseconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00')
     if time_unit == 'us':
         tscale = 1
     else:
         tscale = (np.timedelta64(1, 'us')/np.timedelta64(1, time_unit))
-    return utime.date2num(date)*tscale
 
+    return cftime.date2num(date,'microseconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00',
+                           calendar='standard')*tscale
 
 def search_indices(values, source):
     """
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 68e295c56d..152506d090 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
     "streamz >=0.5.0",
     "datashader >=0.11.1",
     "ffmpeg",
-    "cftime <=1.4.1",
+    "cftime",
     "netcdf4",
     "dask",
     "scipy",