diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/poppler/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/poppler/default.nix
index 523e372996bc..b8c88541edd1 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/libraries/poppler/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/poppler/default.nix
@@ -7,28 +7,20 @@
 , minimal ? false, suffix ? "glib"
 }:
 
-let # beware: updates often break cups-filters build
-  version = "0.74.0";
+let
   mkFlag = optset: flag: "-DENABLE_${flag}=${if optset then "on" else "off"}";
 in
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   name = "poppler-${suffix}-${version}";
+  version = "0.81.0"; # beware: updates often break cups-filters build
 
   src = fetchurl {
     url = "${meta.homepage}/poppler-${version}.tar.xz";
-    sha256 = "0bvb0yq9zsl2b811j4l4x0vf8g5lgmqbndkb2hvgsrr5639rzq4j";
+    sha256 = "00pykc7nym3xg0wc60awv0i35zwdfyn0igb6jrnb6rsv0c5h4b91";
   };
 
   outputs = [ "out" "dev" ];
 
-  patches = [
-    (fetchpatch {
-      name = "CVE-2019-9959.patch";
-      url = "https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/poppler/poppler/commit/68ef84e5968a4249c2162b839ca6d7975048a557.patch";
-      sha256 = "17a3qs74fnnrhjys23f4aw5y7yfsk5d507jcj4hh1bndqv6dpwg1";
-    })
-  ];
-
   buildInputs = [ libiconv libintl ] ++ lib.optional withData poppler_data;
 
   # TODO: reduce propagation to necessary libs