diff --git a/builder/Dockerfile.ubuntu-2604 b/builder/Dockerfile.ubuntu-2604
index d290325..3a7e5c2 100644
--- a/builder/Dockerfile.ubuntu-2604
+++ b/builder/Dockerfile.ubuntu-2604
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ RUN set -x \
   && sed -i "s|Types: deb|Types: deb deb-src|g" /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources \
   && export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
   && apt update \
-  && apt install -y curl libcurl4-openssl-dev libicu-dev libopenblas0-pthread libpcre2-dev libpcre3-dev unzip wget \
+  && apt install -y curl libcurl4-openssl-dev libicu-dev libopenblas0-pthread libpcre2-dev unzip wget \
   && apt build-dep -y r-base
 
 # Install s5cmd for S3 uploads (much faster than AWS CLI)
diff --git a/builder/package.ubuntu-2604 b/builder/package.ubuntu-2604
index bae464d..8d78504 100644
--- a/builder/package.ubuntu-2604
+++ b/builder/package.ubuntu-2604
@@ -4,12 +4,8 @@ if [[ ! -d /tmp/output/${OS_IDENTIFIER} ]]; then
   mkdir -p "/tmp/output/${OS_IDENTIFIER}"
 fi
 
-# R 3.x requires PCRE1. On Ubuntu 26, R 3.x also requires PCRE2 for Pango support.
+# PCRE1 (libpcre3-dev) is not available on Ubuntu 26.04, use PCRE2 only.
 pcre_libs='- libpcre2-dev'
-if [[ "${R_VERSION}" =~ ^3 ]]; then
-  pcre_libs='- libpcre2-dev
-- libpcre3-dev'
-fi
 
 deflate_libs='# - libdeflate-dev'
 if grep -q '^LIBS *=.*[-]ldeflate' ${R_INSTALL_PATH}/lib/R/etc/Makeconf; then