diff --git a/changelog.d/13897.feature b/changelog.d/13897.feature
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..d46fdf9fa566
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog.d/13897.feature
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Enable Write-Ahead Logging for SQLite installs. Contributed by [asymmetric](https://github.com/asymmetric).
diff --git a/synapse/storage/engines/sqlite.py b/synapse/storage/engines/sqlite.py
index faa574dbfd6e..14260442b6e4 100644
--- a/synapse/storage/engines/sqlite.py
+++ b/synapse/storage/engines/sqlite.py
@@ -88,6 +88,10 @@ def on_new_connection(self, db_conn: "LoggingDatabaseConnection") -> None:
 
         db_conn.create_function("rank", 1, _rank)
         db_conn.execute("PRAGMA foreign_keys = ON;")
+
+        # Enable WAL.
+        # see https://www.sqlite.org/wal.html
+        db_conn.execute("PRAGMA journal_mode = WAL;")
         db_conn.commit()
 
     def is_deadlock(self, error: Exception) -> bool: