diff --git a/src/boot/ostree-finalize-staged.service b/src/boot/ostree-finalize-staged.service
index 2ae6491867..10e551e420 100644
--- a/src/boot/ostree-finalize-staged.service
+++ b/src/boot/ostree-finalize-staged.service
@@ -32,3 +32,7 @@ Conflicts=final.target
 Type=oneshot
 RemainAfterExit=yes
 ExecStop=/usr/bin/ostree admin finalize-staged
+# This is a quite long timeout intentionally; the failure mode
+# here is that people don't get an upgrade.  We need to handle
+# cases with slow rotational media, etc.
+TimeoutStopSec=5m