diff --git a/packages/cli/bin/n8n b/packages/cli/bin/n8n
index 6eca060851..c4b593ccc9 100755
--- a/packages/cli/bin/n8n
+++ b/packages/cli/bin/n8n
@@ -43,6 +43,13 @@ require('express-async-errors');
 require('source-map-support').install();
 require('reflect-metadata');
 
+// Skip loading dotenv in e2e tests.
+// Also, do not use `inE2ETests` from constants here, because that'd end up code that might read from `process.env` before the values are loaded from an `.env` file.
+if (process.env.E2E_TESTS !== 'true') {
+	// Loading dotenv early ensures that `process.env` is up-to-date everywhere in code
+	require('dotenv').config();
+}
+
 if (process.env.NODEJS_PREFER_IPV4 === 'true') {
 	require('dns').setDefaultResultOrder('ipv4first');
 }
diff --git a/packages/cli/src/config/index.ts b/packages/cli/src/config/index.ts
index 6661057b9a..0c799aa8a5 100644
--- a/packages/cli/src/config/index.ts
+++ b/packages/cli/src/config/index.ts
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 import { GlobalConfig } from '@n8n/config';
 import convict from 'convict';
-import dotenv from 'dotenv';
 import { flatten } from 'flat';
 import { readFileSync } from 'fs';
 import merge from 'lodash/merge';
@@ -22,8 +21,6 @@ if (inE2ETests) {
 	process.env.N8N_PUBLIC_API_DISABLED = 'true';
 	process.env.SKIP_STATISTICS_EVENTS = 'true';
 	process.env.N8N_SECURE_COOKIE = 'false';
-} else {
-	dotenv.config();
 }
 
 // Load schema after process.env has been overwritten