diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 56d05ac7ef..15a5ceb051 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -2,6 +2,17 @@ systemd System and Service Manager
 
 CHANGES WITH 244 in spe:
 
+        * systemd-udevd: removed the 30s timeout for killing stale workers on
+          exit. systemd-udevd now waits for workers to finish. The hard-coded
+          exit timeout of 30s was too short for some large installations, where
+          driver initialization could be prematurely interrupted during initrd
+          processing if the root file system had been mounted and init was
+          preparing to switch root. If udevd is run without systemd and workers
+          are hanging while udevd receives an exit signal, udevd will now exit
+          when udev.event_timeout is reached for the last hanging worker. With
+          systemd, the exit timeout can additionally be configured using
+          TimeoutStopSec= in systemd-udevd.service.
+
         * Support for the cpuset cgroups v2 controller has been added.
           Processes may be restricted to specific CPUs using the new
           AllowedCPUs= setting, and to specific memory NUMA nodes using the new
diff --git a/src/udev/udevd.c b/src/udev/udevd.c
index 0ae61c1e8b..144a20ec63 100644
--- a/src/udev/udevd.c
+++ b/src/udev/udevd.c
@@ -774,21 +774,7 @@ set_delaying_seqnum:
         return true;
 }
 
-static int on_exit_timeout(sd_event_source *s, uint64_t usec, void *userdata) {
-        Manager *manager = userdata;
-
-        assert(manager);
-
-        log_error("Giving up waiting for workers to finish.");
-        sd_event_exit(manager->event, -ETIMEDOUT);
-
-        return 1;
-}
-
 static void manager_exit(Manager *manager) {
-        uint64_t usec;
-        int r;
-
         assert(manager);
 
         manager->exit = true;
@@ -808,13 +794,6 @@ static void manager_exit(Manager *manager) {
         /* discard queued events and kill workers */
         event_queue_cleanup(manager, EVENT_QUEUED);
         manager_kill_workers(manager);
-
-        assert_se(sd_event_now(manager->event, CLOCK_MONOTONIC, &usec) >= 0);
-
-        r = sd_event_add_time(manager->event, NULL, CLOCK_MONOTONIC,
-                              usec + 30 * USEC_PER_SEC, USEC_PER_SEC, on_exit_timeout, manager);
-        if (r < 0)
-                return;
 }
 
 /* reload requested, HUP signal received, rules changed, builtin changed */