diff --git a/.build/cassandra-deps-template.xml b/.build/cassandra-deps-template.xml
index ec36e5f09e..41796246cd 100644
--- a/.build/cassandra-deps-template.xml
+++ b/.build/cassandra-deps-template.xml
@@ -60,10 +60,6 @@
       <groupId>commons-cli</groupId>
       <artifactId>commons-cli</artifactId>
     </dependency>
-    <dependency>
-      <groupId>commons-codec</groupId>
-      <artifactId>commons-codec</artifactId>
-    </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
       <artifactId>commons-lang3</artifactId>
diff --git a/.build/parent-pom-template.xml b/.build/parent-pom-template.xml
index 2ff1c14378..136cf3a9e9 100644
--- a/.build/parent-pom-template.xml
+++ b/.build/parent-pom-template.xml
@@ -357,11 +357,6 @@
         <artifactId>commons-cli</artifactId>
         <version>1.5.0</version>
       </dependency>
-      <dependency>
-        <groupId>commons-codec</groupId>
-        <artifactId>commons-codec</artifactId>
-        <version>1.9</version>
-      </dependency>
       <dependency>
         <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
         <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 7294d99c8a..26dab609c1 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 5.1
  * Clean up obsolete functions and simplify cql_version handling in cqlsh (CASSANDRA-18787)
 Merged from 5.0:
+ * Remove commons-codec dependency (CASSANDRA-18772)
  * Fix rpm installations to work with jdk17 (CASSANDRA-18817)
  * Fix Depends and Build-Depends for Java for Debian packages (CASSANDRA-18809)
  * Update command line flags --add-exports and --add-opens for JDK17 (CASSANDRA-18439)