diff --git a/pkgs/development/nim-packages/build-nim-package/default.nix b/pkgs/development/nim-packages/build-nim-package/default.nix
index 46d898cc1d22..5ad181252df4 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/nim-packages/build-nim-package/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/nim-packages/build-nim-package/default.nix
@@ -2,10 +2,10 @@
 
 { strictDeps ? true, depsBuildBuild ? [ ], nativeBuildInputs ? [ ]
 , configurePhase ? null, buildPhase ? null, checkPhase ? null
-, installPhase ? null, meta ? { }, ... }@attrs:
+, installPhase ? null, enableParallelBuilding ? true, meta ? { }, ... }@attrs:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation (attrs // {
-  inherit strictDeps;
+  inherit strictDeps enableParallelBuilding;
   depsBuildBuild = [ nim_builder ] ++ depsBuildBuild;
   nativeBuildInputs = [ nim ] ++ nativeBuildInputs;
 
diff --git a/pkgs/development/nim-packages/nim_builder/nim_builder.nim b/pkgs/development/nim-packages/nim_builder/nim_builder.nim
index 0cb68e63f137..8bb78555c269 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/nim-packages/nim_builder/nim_builder.nim
+++ b/pkgs/development/nim-packages/nim_builder/nim_builder.nim
@@ -119,8 +119,8 @@ proc buildPhase*() =
     binDir = getOutputDir("bin") / "bin"
   if bins != @[]:
     for bin in bins:
-      cmds.add("nim compile $# --outdir:$# $#" %
-          [getenv"nimFlags", binDir, normalizedPath(srcDir / bin)])
+      cmds.add("nim compile $# --parallelBuild:$# --outdir:$# $#" %
+          [getenv("nimFlags"), getenv("NIX_BUILD_CORES","1"), binDir, normalizedPath(srcDir / bin)])
   if getEnvBool"nimDoc":
     echo "generating documentation"
     let docDir = getOutputDir("doc") / "doc"