diff --git a/.changes/rpm-compression-level.md b/.changes/rpm-compression-level.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..93feb3c34
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changes/rpm-compression-level.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+tauri-bundler: patch:enhance
+---
+
+Reduced the compression level for rpm bundles from 9 (max) to 6. This has almost no effect on file size but should reduce build time by roughly 25%.
diff --git a/tooling/bundler/src/bundle/linux/rpm.rs b/tooling/bundler/src/bundle/linux/rpm.rs
index 5181e1def..ee3383ae7 100644
--- a/tooling/bundler/src/bundle/linux/rpm.rs
+++ b/tooling/bundler/src/bundle/linux/rpm.rs
@@ -47,7 +47,9 @@ pub fn bundle_project(settings: &Settings) -> crate::Result<Vec<PathBuf>> {
   let license = settings.license().unwrap_or_default();
   let mut builder = rpm::PackageBuilder::new(name, version, &license, arch, summary)
     .epoch(epoch)
-    .release(release);
+    .release(release)
+    // This matches .deb compression. On a 240MB source binary the bundle will be 100KB larger than rpm's default while reducing build times by ~25%.
+    .compression(rpm::CompressionWithLevel::Gzip(6));
 
   if let Some(description) = settings.long_description() {
     builder = builder.description(description.trim())