diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 47e1d5a6d..727dd7f7a 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -46,7 +46,6 @@ commands =
     --remote-data \
     --durations=10 \
     jsonschema: --jsonschema \
-    coverage: --open-files \
     parallel: --numprocesses auto \
 # the OpenAstronomy workflow appends `--cov-report` in `{posargs}`, which `coverage` doesn't recognize
     !coverage: {posargs}