diff --git a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/DefaultSearchContext.java b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/DefaultSearchContext.java
index 1521b17a81766..fe6c542e629ec 100644
--- a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/DefaultSearchContext.java
+++ b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/DefaultSearchContext.java
@@ -291,7 +291,6 @@ static int determineMaximumNumberOfSlices(
         ToLongFunction<String> fieldCardinality
     ) {
         return executor instanceof ThreadPoolExecutor tpe
-            && tpe.getQueue().isEmpty()
             && isParallelCollectionSupportedForResults(resultsType, request.source(), fieldCardinality, enableQueryPhaseParallelCollection)
                 ? tpe.getMaximumPoolSize()
                 : 1;