diff --git a/docusaurus/docs/advanced-configuration.md b/docusaurus/docs/advanced-configuration.md
index 871edd2f49d..76efe840f04 100644
--- a/docusaurus/docs/advanced-configuration.md
+++ b/docusaurus/docs/advanced-configuration.md
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ You can adjust various development and production settings by setting environmen
 | REACT_EDITOR            |   ✅ Used   | 🚫 Ignored | When an app crashes in development, you will see an error overlay with clickable stack trace. When you click on it, Create React App will try to determine the editor you are using based on currently running processes, and open the relevant source file. You can [send a pull request to detect your editor of choice](https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/2636). Setting this environment variable overrides the automatic detection. If you do it, make sure your systems [PATH](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(variable)>) environment variable points to your editor’s bin folder. You can also set it to `none` to disable it completely. |
 | CHOKIDAR_USEPOLLING     |   ✅ Used   | 🚫 Ignored | When set to `true`, the watcher runs in polling mode, as necessary inside a VM. Use this option if `npm start` isn't detecting changes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
 | GENERATE_SOURCEMAP      | 🚫 Ignored  |  ✅ Used   | When set to `false`, source maps are not generated for a production build. This solves out of memory (OOM) issues on some smaller machines.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
+| COMPILE_DEPENDENCIES    |   ✅ used   |  ✅ Used   | When set to `false`, dependencies are not compiled. This is a trade-off, trading safety for faster build time. If a dependency you use ships code that is not compiled for older browsers it could cause issues for your users.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
 | NODE_PATH               |   ✅ Used   |  ✅ Used   | Same as [`NODE_PATH` in Node.js](https://nodejs.org/api/modules.html#modules_loading_from_the_global_folders), but only relative folders are allowed. Can be handy for emulating a monorepo setup by setting `NODE_PATH=src`.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
 | INLINE_RUNTIME_CHUNK    | 🚫 Ignored  |  ✅ Used   | By default, Create React App will embed the runtime script into `index.html` during the production build. When set to `false`, the script will not be embedded and will be imported as usual. This is normally required when dealing with CSP.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           |
 | IMAGE_INLINE_SIZE_LIMIT | 🚫 Ignored  |  ✅ Used   | By default, images smaller than 10,000 bytes are encoded as a data URI in base64 and inlined in the CSS or JS build artifact. Set this to control the size limit in bytes. Setting it to 0 will disable the inlining of images.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
diff --git a/packages/react-scripts/config/webpack.config.js b/packages/react-scripts/config/webpack.config.js
index bad4290061b..bb12876aca6 100644
--- a/packages/react-scripts/config/webpack.config.js
+++ b/packages/react-scripts/config/webpack.config.js
@@ -45,6 +45,8 @@ const shouldUseSourceMap = process.env.GENERATE_SOURCEMAP !== 'false';
 // Some apps do not need the benefits of saving a web request, so not inlining the chunk
 // makes for a smoother build process.
 const shouldInlineRuntimeChunk = process.env.INLINE_RUNTIME_CHUNK !== 'false';
+// Some apps do not need to compile their dependencies, and not doing so speeds up builds.
+const shouldCompileDependencies = process.env.COMPILE_DEPENDENCIES !== 'false';
 
 const imageInlineSizeLimit = parseInt(
   process.env.IMAGE_INLINE_SIZE_LIMIT || '10000'
@@ -270,8 +272,8 @@ module.exports = function(webpackEnv) {
               : false,
           },
           cssProcessorPluginOptions: {
-              preset: ['default', { minifyFontValues: { removeQuotes: false } }]
-          }
+            preset: ['default', { minifyFontValues: { removeQuotes: false } }],
+          },
         }),
       ],
       // Automatically split vendor and commons
@@ -454,7 +456,7 @@ module.exports = function(webpackEnv) {
             },
             // Process any JS outside of the app with Babel.
             // Unlike the application JS, we only compile the standard ES features.
-            {
+            shouldCompileDependencies && {
               test: /\.(js|mjs)$/,
               exclude: /@babel(?:\/|\\{1,2})runtime/,
               loader: require.resolve('babel-loader'),
@@ -575,7 +577,7 @@ module.exports = function(webpackEnv) {
             },
             // ** STOP ** Are you adding a new loader?
             // Make sure to add the new loader(s) before the "file" loader.
-          ],
+          ].filter(Boolean),
         },
       ],
     },