diff --git a/solr/CHANGES.txt b/solr/CHANGES.txt
index cf902c08ca5..f6c569479e8 100644
--- a/solr/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/solr/CHANGES.txt
@@ -244,6 +244,8 @@ Bug Fixes
 * SOLR-7494: Facet Module - unique() facet function was wildly inaccurate for high cardinality
   fields. (Andy Crossen, yonik)
 
+* SOLR-7502: start script should not try to create configset for .system collection (Noble Paul)
+
 
 Optimizations
 ----------------------
diff --git a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrCLI.java b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrCLI.java
index 75e28b0f4fc..5bd580aedfb 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrCLI.java
+++ b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrCLI.java
@@ -1199,7 +1199,9 @@ public class SolrCLI {
       boolean configExistsInZk =
           cloudSolrClient.getZkStateReader().getZkClient().exists("/configs/"+confname, true);
 
-      if (configExistsInZk) {
+      if (".system".equals(collectionName)) {
+        //do nothing
+      } else if (configExistsInZk) {
         System.out.println("Re-using existing configuration directory "+confname);
       } else {
         String configSet = cli.getOptionValue("confdir", DEFAULT_CONFIG_SET);