diff --git a/REQUIRE b/REQUIRE
index ce3698b..c7eded8 100644
--- a/REQUIRE
+++ b/REQUIRE
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
 julia 0.4
-Compat 0.9.5
+Compat 0.17.0
diff --git a/src/Parser.jl b/src/Parser.jl
index 94ead53..fd50154 100644
--- a/src/Parser.jl
+++ b/src/Parser.jl
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ Like `isdigit`, but for bytes.
 """
 isjsondigit(b::UInt8) = DIGIT_ZERO ≤ b ≤ DIGIT_NINE
 
-abstract ParserState
+@compat abstract type ParserState end
 
 type MemoryParserState <: ParserState
     utf8data::Vector{UInt8}