diff --git a/src/udev/udev-manager.c b/src/udev/udev-manager.c
index 0c59c172e0..7748a073b7 100644
--- a/src/udev/udev-manager.c
+++ b/src/udev/udev-manager.c
@@ -1154,6 +1154,9 @@ static int manager_unlink_queue_file(Manager *manager) {
         if (manager->events)
                 return 0; /* There are queued events. */
 
+        if (!set_isempty(manager->synthesize_change_child_event_sources))
+                return 0; /* There are child processes that should trigger synthetic events. */
+
         /* There are no queued events. Let's remove /run/udev/queue and clean up the idle processes. */
         if (unlink("/run/udev/queue") < 0) {
                 if (errno != ENOENT)