diff --git a/.github/workflows/main.yml b/.github/workflows/main.yml
index 7a6be6694b..235f44ced1 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/main.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/main.yml
@@ -42,12 +42,12 @@ jobs:
         - "3.14"
         - "3.14t"
         docutils:
-        - "0.20"
+        - "0.21"
         - "0.22"
-        include:
-        # test every supported Docutils version for the latest supported Python
-        - python: "3.14"
-          docutils: "0.21"
+#        include:
+#        # test every supported Docutils version for the latest supported Python
+#        - python: "3.14"
+#          docutils: "0.21"
 
     steps:
     - uses: actions/checkout@v6
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ jobs:
         python:
         - "3.15"
         docutils:
-        - "0.20"
+        - "0.21"
         - "0.22"
 
     steps:
diff --git a/CHANGES.rst b/CHANGES.rst
index ebb9ea3bd9..6a3f076238 100644
--- a/CHANGES.rst
+++ b/CHANGES.rst
@@ -5,6 +5,8 @@ Dependencies
 ------------
 
 * #14153: Drop Python 3.11 support.
+* #12555: Drop Docutils 0.20 support.
+  Patch by Adam Turner
 
 Incompatible changes
 --------------------
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index ee19720c6d..b26c3f2cd9 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ dependencies = [
     "sphinxcontrib-serializinghtml>=1.1.9",
     "Jinja2>=3.1",
     "Pygments>=2.17",
-    "docutils>=0.20,<0.23",
+    "docutils>=0.21,<0.23",
     "snowballstemmer>=2.2",
     "babel>=2.13",
     "alabaster>=0.7.14",
diff --git a/tests/test_builders/test_build_html_image.py b/tests/test_builders/test_build_html_image.py
index 40e1b1cc42..6c25660280 100644
--- a/tests/test_builders/test_build_html_image.py
+++ b/tests/test_builders/test_build_html_image.py
@@ -75,12 +75,10 @@ def test_html_scaled_image_link(app: SphinxTestApp) -> None:
             context,
         )
     else:
-        # Docutils 0.21 adds a newline before the closing </a> tag
-        closing_space = '\n' if docutils.__version_info__[:2] >= (0, 21) else ''
         assert re.search(
             '\n<a class="reference internal image-reference" href="_images/img.png">'
             '<img alt="_images/img.png" src="_images/img.png" style="[^"]+" />'
-            f'{closing_space}</a>',
+            '\n</a>',
             context,
         )
 
diff --git a/tests/test_builders/test_build_linkcheck.py b/tests/test_builders/test_build_linkcheck.py
index fdaf92ccd3..7b036ec450 100644
--- a/tests/test_builders/test_build_linkcheck.py
+++ b/tests/test_builders/test_build_linkcheck.py
@@ -15,7 +15,6 @@ from queue import Queue
 from typing import TYPE_CHECKING
 from unittest import mock
 
-import docutils
 import pytest
 from urllib3.poolmanager import PoolManager
 
@@ -177,11 +176,7 @@ def test_defaults(app: SphinxTestApp) -> None:
             'info': f'404 Client Error: Not Found for url: http://{address}/{filename}',
         }
 
-    accurate_linenumbers = docutils.__version_info__[:2] >= (0, 21)
-    image2_lineno = 12 if accurate_linenumbers else 13
-    assert rowsby[f'http://{address}/image2.png'] == _missing_resource(
-        'image2.png', image2_lineno
-    )
+    assert rowsby[f'http://{address}/image2.png'] == _missing_resource('image2.png', 12)
     # looking for '#top' and '#does-not-exist' not found should fail
     assert rowsby[f'http://{address}/#top']['info'] == "Anchor 'top' not found"
     assert rowsby[f'http://{address}/#top']['status'] == 'broken'
diff --git a/tests/test_builders/test_build_manpage.py b/tests/test_builders/test_build_manpage.py
index 7e796a1514..59ee10cccf 100644
--- a/tests/test_builders/test_build_manpage.py
+++ b/tests/test_builders/test_build_manpage.py
@@ -4,7 +4,6 @@ from __future__ import annotations
 
 from typing import TYPE_CHECKING
 
-import docutils
 import pytest
 
 from sphinx.builders.manpage import default_man_pages
@@ -65,25 +64,7 @@ def test_captioned_code_block(app: SphinxTestApp) -> None:
     app.build(force_all=True)
     content = (app.outdir / 'projectnamenotset.1').read_text(encoding='utf8')
 
-    if docutils.__version_info__[:2] < (0, 21):
-        expected = """\
-.sp
-caption \\fItest\\fP rb
-.INDENT 0.0
-.INDENT 3.5
-.sp
-.nf
-.ft C
-def ruby?
-    false
-end
-.ft P
-.fi
-.UNINDENT
-.UNINDENT
-"""
-    else:
-        expected = """\
+    expected = """\
 .sp
 caption \\fItest\\fP rb
 .INDENT 0.0
diff --git a/uv.lock b/uv.lock
index 6d6a05dbd6..8ab8b954fd 100644
--- a/uv.lock
+++ b/uv.lock
@@ -1334,7 +1334,7 @@ requires-dist = [
     { name = "alabaster", specifier = ">=0.7.14" },
     { name = "babel", specifier = ">=2.13" },
     { name = "colorama", marker = "sys_platform == 'win32'", specifier = ">=0.4.6" },
-    { name = "docutils", specifier = ">=0.20,<0.23" },
+    { name = "docutils", specifier = ">=0.21,<0.23" },
     { name = "imagesize", specifier = ">=1.3" },
     { name = "jinja2", specifier = ">=3.1" },
     { name = "packaging", specifier = ">=23.0" },