diff --git a/.gitea/workflows/sop-tier-check.yml b/.gitea/workflows/sop-tier-check.yml
index 76750d50..d4b74ed3 100644
--- a/.gitea/workflows/sop-tier-check.yml
+++ b/.gitea/workflows/sop-tier-check.yml
@@ -77,23 +77,6 @@ jobs:
           # works if we never check out PR HEAD. Same SHA the workflow
           # itself was loaded from.
           ref: ${{ github.event.pull_request.base.sha }}
-      - name: Install jq
-        # Gitea Actions runners (ubuntu-latest label) do not bundle jq.
-        # The sop-tier-check script uses jq for all JSON API parsing.
-        # Install jq before the script runs so sop-tier-check can pass.
-        #
-        # Method: download binary directly from GitHub releases (faster and
-        # more reliable than apt-get in containerized environments). Falls
-        # back to apt-get if the download fails. The smoke test confirms
-        # jq is on PATH before the main script runs.
-        run: |
-          set -e
-          timeout 60 curl -sSL \
-            "https://github.com/jqlang/jq/releases/download/jq-1.7.1/jq-linux-amd64" \
-            -o /usr/local/bin/jq && chmod +x /usr/local/bin/jq \
-          || apt-get update -qq && apt-get install -y -qq jq
-          jq --version
-
       - name: Verify tier label + reviewer team membership
         env:
           # SOP_TIER_CHECK_TOKEN is the org-level secret for the