diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/singularityce/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/singularityce/package.py
index 535f7866435..a5c4a4b50ec 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/singularityce/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/singularityce/package.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 
 
 class SingularityBase(MakefilePackage):
-    variant("suid", default=True, description="install SUID binary")
+    variant("suid", default=False, description="install SUID binary")
     variant("network", default=True, description="install network plugins")
 
     depends_on("pkgconfig", type="build")