diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 04b90c97a92..dc3cc7f8b64 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -929,15 +929,6 @@ ntp_servers = get_option('ntp-servers')
 conf.set_quoted('NTP_SERVERS', ntp_servers)
 
 default_locale = get_option('default-locale')
-if default_locale == ''
-        if not meson.is_cross_build()
-                choose_default_locale_sh = find_program('tools/choose-default-locale.sh')
-                default_locale = run_command(choose_default_locale_sh,
-                                             check : true).stdout().strip()
-        else
-                default_locale = 'C.UTF-8'
-        endif
-endif
 conf.set_quoted('SYSTEMD_DEFAULT_LOCALE', default_locale)
 
 localegen_path = get_option('localegen-path')
diff --git a/meson_options.txt b/meson_options.txt
index 26d1170c504..6c816abd65d 100644
--- a/meson_options.txt
+++ b/meson_options.txt
@@ -300,7 +300,7 @@ option('default-kill-user-processes', type : 'boolean',
        description : 'the default value for KillUserProcesses= setting')
 option('gshadow', type : 'boolean',
        description : 'support for shadow group')
-option('default-locale', type : 'string', value : '',
+option('default-locale', type : 'string', value : 'C.UTF-8',
        description : 'default locale used when /etc/locale.conf does not exist')
 option('localegen-path', type : 'string', value : '',
        description : 'absolute path to the locale-gen binary in case the system is using locale-gen')
diff --git a/tools/choose-default-locale.sh b/tools/choose-default-locale.sh
deleted file mode 100755
index a5158cf7c5a..00000000000
--- a/tools/choose-default-locale.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,12 +0,0 @@
-#!/bin/sh
-# SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later
-set -e
-
-# Fedora uses C.utf8 but Debian uses C.UTF-8
-if locale -a | grep -xq -E 'C\.(utf8|UTF-8)'; then
-    echo 'C.UTF-8'
-elif locale -a | grep -xqF 'en_US.utf8'; then
-    echo 'en_US.UTF-8'
-else
-    echo 'C'
-fi