diff --git a/solvers/ipopt_solver.cc b/solvers/ipopt_solver.cc
index 297c8387d611..b94d1e2181df 100644
--- a/solvers/ipopt_solver.cc
+++ b/solvers/ipopt_solver.cc
@@ -61,14 +61,6 @@ void SetAppOptions(const std::string& default_linear_solver,
     set_string_option("linear_solver", default_linear_solver);
   }
 
-  // The default tolerance.
-  const double tol = 1.05e-10;  // Note: SNOPT is only 1e-6, but in #3712 we
-  // diagnosed that the CompareMatrices tolerance needed to be the sqrt of the
-  // constr_viol_tol
-  set_double_option("tol", tol);
-  set_double_option("constr_viol_tol", tol);
-  set_double_option("acceptable_tol", tol);
-  set_double_option("acceptable_constr_viol_tol", tol);
   set_string_option("hessian_approximation", "limited-memory");
 
   // Any user-supplied options handled below will overwrite the above defaults.
diff --git a/solvers/test/ipopt_solver_test.cc b/solvers/test/ipopt_solver_test.cc
index 6518bc2553c7..a515c191ecbf 100644
--- a/solvers/test/ipopt_solver_test.cc
+++ b/solvers/test/ipopt_solver_test.cc
@@ -206,7 +206,7 @@ GTEST_TEST(IpoptSolverTest, AcceptableResult) {
 GTEST_TEST(IpoptSolverTest, QPDualSolution1) {
   IpoptSolver solver;
   ConfigureIpopt(&solver);
-  TestQPDualSolution1(solver, {} /* solver_options */, 1e-5);
+  TestQPDualSolution1(solver, {} /* solver_options */, /*tol=*/1e-4);
 }
 
 GTEST_TEST(IpoptSolverTest, QPDualSolution2) {
@@ -273,7 +273,7 @@ GTEST_TEST(IpoptSolverTest, TestNonconvexQP) {
   IpoptSolver solver;
   ConfigureIpopt(&solver);
   if (solver.available()) {
-    TestNonconvexQP(solver, false);
+    TestNonconvexQP(solver, false, /*tol=*/1E-4);
   }
 }