diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index 034aa2b789a6..99d91078f7db 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@
 # (this increases performance and avoids hard-to-debug behaviour)
 MAKEFLAGS += -rR
 
+.NOTPARALLEL:
+
 DEBIAN=$(shell awk -F= '($$1 == "DEBIAN") { print $$2 }' <debian/debian.env)
 
 # dpkg-buildpackage passes options that are incomptatible