diff --git a/rust/lancedb/Cargo.toml b/rust/lancedb/Cargo.toml
index ebec41318..94857a124 100644
--- a/rust/lancedb/Cargo.toml
+++ b/rust/lancedb/Cargo.toml
@@ -106,6 +106,9 @@ sha2 = "0.10"
 [dev-dependencies]
 anyhow = "1"
 lance-testing = { workspace = true }
+# RestAdapter is only used by cfg(test) code. Keep rest-adapter off the
+# production remote feature so Python wheels do not resolve its Axum 0.7 stack.
+lance-namespace-impls = { workspace = true, features = ["rest-adapter"] }
 tempfile = { workspace = true }
 random_word = { version = "0.4.3", features = ["en"] }
 tokio = { workspace = true, features = ["io-util", "macros", "net", "test-util"] }
@@ -169,7 +172,6 @@ remote = [
     "dep:webbrowser",
     "dep:fs4",
     "lance-namespace-impls/rest",
-    "lance-namespace-impls/rest-adapter",
 ]
 # Publish LanceDB's internal metrics (currently object store request counts,
 # bytes, latency, errors, and throttles) through the `metrics` crate facade,