diff --git a/base/Base.jl b/base/Base.jl
index 3a3d095d3916c..42a506479326b 100644
--- a/base/Base.jl
+++ b/base/Base.jl
@@ -488,7 +488,6 @@ function __init__()
     if haskey(ENV, "JULIA_MAX_NUM_PRECOMPILE_FILES")
         MAX_NUM_PRECOMPILE_FILES[] = parse(Int, ENV["JULIA_MAX_NUM_PRECOMPILE_FILES"])
     end
-    append!(empty!(TIMING_IMPORTS), zeros(Int, Threads.nthreads()))
     nothing
 end
 
diff --git a/base/loading.jl b/base/loading.jl
index 238ab4b84de58..eac5286263690 100644
--- a/base/loading.jl
+++ b/base/loading.jl
@@ -822,7 +822,7 @@ function _require_from_serialized(path::String)
 end
 
 # use an Int counter so that nested @time_imports calls all remain open
-const TIMING_IMPORTS = Int[] # initialized in __init__
+const TIMING_IMPORTS = Threads.Atomic{Int}(0)
 
 # returns `true` if require found a precompile cache for this sourcepath, but couldn't load it
 # returns `false` if the module isn't known to be precompilable
@@ -859,7 +859,7 @@ function _require_search_from_serialized(pkg::PkgId, sourcepath::String, depth::
         if isa(restored, Exception)
             @debug "Deserialization checks failed while attempting to load cache from $path_to_try" exception=restored
         else
-            if TIMING_IMPORTS[Threads.threadid()] > 0
+            if TIMING_IMPORTS[] > 0
                 elapsed = round((time_ns() - t_before) / 1e6, digits = 1)
                 tree_prefix = depth == 0 ? "" : "$("  "^(depth-1))┌ "
                 print("$(lpad(elapsed, 9)) ms  ")
diff --git a/stdlib/InteractiveUtils/src/macros.jl b/stdlib/InteractiveUtils/src/macros.jl
index 17b9943d88165..701f548e9da91 100644
--- a/stdlib/InteractiveUtils/src/macros.jl
+++ b/stdlib/InteractiveUtils/src/macros.jl
@@ -235,10 +235,10 @@ end
 macro time_imports(ex)
     quote
         try
-            Base.TIMING_IMPORTS[Threads.threadid()] += 1
+            Base.TIMING_IMPORTS[] += 1
             $(esc(ex))
         finally
-            Base.TIMING_IMPORTS[Threads.threadid()] -= 1
+            Base.TIMING_IMPORTS[] -= 1
         end
     end
 end