diff --git a/pkgs/development/tools/parsing/bison/3.x.nix b/pkgs/development/tools/parsing/bison/3.x.nix
index 2e3a4f8d497b..284223905f64 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/tools/parsing/bison/3.x.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/tools/parsing/bison/3.x.nix
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{ stdenv, fetchurl, m4, perl, flex }:
+{ stdenv, fetchurl, m4, perl }:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   name = "bison-3.0.2";
@@ -8,11 +8,9 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     sha256 = "1vc17y6242jlwp0gdj7wsim3nvc1ws7q3j0v3065nz8g9hd9vwnd";
   };
 
-  nativeBuildInputs = [ m4 perl ] ++ stdenv.lib.optionals doCheck [ flex ];
+  nativeBuildInputs = [ m4 perl ];
   propagatedBuildInputs = [ m4 ];
 
-  doCheck = flex != null;
-
   meta = {
     homepage = "http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/";
     description = "GNU Bison, a Yacc-compatible parser generator";
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index 38791ec46dff..4f8bb74306a3 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -3500,11 +3500,7 @@ let
 
   checkstyle = callPackage ../development/tools/analysis/checkstyle { };
 
-  flex = callPackage ../development/tools/parsing/flex {
-    # Break infinite recursion: bison's test suite needs flex, so we
-    # use an untested bison build to build flex first.
-    yacc = bison.override { flex = null; };
-  };
+  flex = callPackage ../development/tools/parsing/flex { };
 
   m4 = gnum4;