diff --git a/pkgs/development/compilers/crystal/default.nix b/pkgs/development/compilers/crystal/default.nix
index ef835ff69f0a..e642e8ee7bc5 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/compilers/crystal/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/compilers/crystal/default.nix
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
 , fetchurl
 , fetchpatch
 , lib
+, substituteAll
   # Dependencies
 , boehmgc
 , coreutils
@@ -100,7 +101,12 @@ let
         inherit sha256;
       };
 
-      patches = [ ]
+      patches = [
+          (substituteAll {
+            src = ./tzdata.patch;
+            inherit tzdata;
+          })
+        ]
         ++ lib.optionals (lib.versionOlder version "1.2.0") [
         # add support for DWARF5 debuginfo, fixes builds on recent compilers
         # the PR is 8 commits from 2019, so just fetch the whole thing
@@ -124,9 +130,6 @@ let
         substituteInPlace Makefile \
           --replace 'docs: ## Generate standard library documentation' 'docs: crystal ## Generate standard library documentation'
 
-        substituteInPlace src/crystal/system/unix/time.cr \
-          --replace /usr/share/zoneinfo ${tzdata}/share/zoneinfo
-
         mkdir -p $TMP/crystal
 
         substituteInPlace spec/std/file_spec.cr \
diff --git a/pkgs/development/compilers/crystal/tzdata.patch b/pkgs/development/compilers/crystal/tzdata.patch
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..b687336753ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/compilers/crystal/tzdata.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+diff --git a/src/crystal/system/unix/time.cr b/src/crystal/system/unix/time.cr
+index 333b66075..1c29a0e55 100644
+--- a/src/crystal/system/unix/time.cr
++++ b/src/crystal/system/unix/time.cr
+@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@ module Crystal::System::Time
+   # Many systems use /usr/share/zoneinfo, Solaris 2 has
+   # /usr/share/lib/zoneinfo, IRIX 6 has /usr/lib/locale/TZ.
+   ZONE_SOURCES = {
++    "@tzdata@/share/zoneinfo/",
+     "/usr/share/zoneinfo/",
+     "/usr/share/lib/zoneinfo/",
+     "/usr/lib/locale/TZ/",