diff --git a/CHANGES.rst b/CHANGES.rst
index 915f35c4014..1104eb529b6 100644
--- a/CHANGES.rst
+++ b/CHANGES.rst
@@ -96,6 +96,10 @@ Bugs fixed
   file URL (user-defined base URL of an intersphinx project are left untouched
   even if they end with double forward slashes).
   Patch by Bénédikt Tran.
+* #12796: Enable parallel reading if requested,
+  even if there are fewer than 6 documents.
+  Patch by Matthias Geier.
+
 
 Testing
 -------
diff --git a/sphinx/builders/__init__.py b/sphinx/builders/__init__.py
index 76e7e230cdc..b86c9cbe586 100644
--- a/sphinx/builders/__init__.py
+++ b/sphinx/builders/__init__.py
@@ -428,7 +428,7 @@ def read(self) -> list[str]:
         self.events.emit('env-before-read-docs', self.env, docnames)
 
         # check if we should do parallel or serial read
-        if parallel_available and len(docnames) > 5 and self.app.parallel > 1:
+        if parallel_available and self.app.parallel > 1:
             par_ok = self.app.is_parallel_allowed('read')
         else:
             par_ok = False