diff --git a/app/models/issue.rb b/app/models/issue.rb
index d8826b65fcc..de90f19f854 100644
--- a/app/models/issue.rb
+++ b/app/models/issue.rb
@@ -15,8 +15,6 @@ class Issue < ActiveRecord::Base
   DueThisWeek   = DueDateStruct.new('Due This Week', 'week').freeze
   DueThisMonth  = DueDateStruct.new('Due This Month', 'month').freeze
 
-  ActsAsTaggableOn.strict_case_match = true
-
   belongs_to :project
   belongs_to :moved_to, class_name: 'Issue'
 
diff --git a/app/models/project.rb b/app/models/project.rb
index 301ff71cc01..814fd0c0f4f 100644
--- a/app/models/project.rb
+++ b/app/models/project.rb
@@ -70,8 +70,7 @@ class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
 
   after_validation :check_pending_delete
 
-  ActsAsTaggableOn.strict_case_match = true
-  acts_as_taggable_on :tags
+  acts_as_taggable
 
   attr_accessor :new_default_branch
   attr_accessor :old_path_with_namespace
diff --git a/changelogs/unreleased/27989-disable-counting-tags.yml b/changelogs/unreleased/27989-disable-counting-tags.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..988785ac454
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/unreleased/27989-disable-counting-tags.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+---
+title: Disable unused tags count cache for Projects, Builds and Runners
+merge_request:
+author:
diff --git a/config/initializers/acts_as_taggable.rb b/config/initializers/acts_as_taggable.rb
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..c564c0cab11
--- /dev/null
+++ b/config/initializers/acts_as_taggable.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+ActsAsTaggableOn.strict_case_match = true
+
+# tags_counter enables caching count of tags which results in an update whenever a tag is added or removed
+# since the count is not used anywhere its better performance wise to disable this cache
+ActsAsTaggableOn.tags_counter = false