diff --git a/news/13165.feature.rst b/news/13165.feature.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..e21ddac50ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/news/13165.feature.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Speed up small CLI tools by removing ``import re`` from the executable template.
diff --git a/src/pip/_internal/operations/install/wheel.py b/src/pip/_internal/operations/install/wheel.py
index aef42aa9eef..290f5e72f51 100644
--- a/src/pip/_internal/operations/install/wheel.py
+++ b/src/pip/_internal/operations/install/wheel.py
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 import re
 import shutil
 import sys
+import textwrap
 import warnings
 from base64 import urlsafe_b64encode
 from email.message import Message
@@ -412,6 +413,19 @@ def _raise_for_invalid_entrypoint(specification: str) -> None:
 
 
 class PipScriptMaker(ScriptMaker):
+    # Override distlib's default script template with one that
+    # doesn't import `re` module, allowing scripts to load faster.
+    script_template = textwrap.dedent(
+        """\
+        import sys
+        from %(module)s import %(import_name)s
+        if __name__ == '__main__':
+            if sys.argv[0].endswith('.exe'):
+                sys.argv[0] = sys.argv[0][:-4]
+            sys.exit(%(func)s())
+"""
+    )
+
     def make(
         self, specification: str, options: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None
     ) -> List[str]: