diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c b/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
index ec053dc1e35c8..9207b6c454756 100644
--- a/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
+++ b/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
@@ -686,8 +686,11 @@ static int __run_perf_stat(int argc, const char **argv, int run_idx)
 					break;
 			}
 		}
-		if (child_pid != -1)
+		if (child_pid != -1) {
+			if (timeout)
+				kill(child_pid, SIGTERM);
 			wait4(child_pid, &status, 0, &stat_config.ru_data);
+		}
 
 		if (workload_exec_errno) {
 			const char *emsg = str_error_r(workload_exec_errno, msg, sizeof(msg));