diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index 1a9c93cbf48..b0550693bda 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -251,6 +251,8 @@ Trunk (Unreleased)
 
     HADOOP-12133. Add schemas to Maven Assembly XMLs (Gábor Lipták via aw)
 
+    HADOOP-12541. make re2j dependency consistent (Matthew Paduano via aw)
+
   BUG FIXES
 
     HADOOP-11473. test-patch says "-1 overall" even when all checks are +1
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/pom.xml b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/pom.xml
index 4e47a3f1cf1..4735c6bc9d0 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/pom.xml
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/pom.xml
@@ -194,7 +194,6 @@
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.google.re2j</groupId>
       <artifactId>re2j</artifactId>
-      <version>${re2j.version}</version>
       <scope>compile</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
diff --git a/hadoop-project/pom.xml b/hadoop-project/pom.xml
index c974a6165e4..efc3a7dd58a 100644
--- a/hadoop-project/pom.xml
+++ b/hadoop-project/pom.xml
@@ -799,6 +799,11 @@
         <artifactId>ant</artifactId>
         <version>1.8.1</version>
       </dependency>
+      <dependency>
+        <groupId>com.google.re2j</groupId>
+        <artifactId>re2j</artifactId>
+        <version>${re2j.version}</version>
+      </dependency>
       <dependency>
         <groupId>com.google.protobuf</groupId>
         <artifactId>protobuf-java</artifactId>