diff --git a/Project.toml b/Project.toml
index ac27360..e140bc5 100644
--- a/Project.toml
+++ b/Project.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 name = "ParallelTestRunner"
 uuid = "d3525ed8-44d0-4b2c-a655-542cee43accc"
-version = "2.8.0"
+version = "2.8.1"
 authors = ["Valentin Churavy <v.churavy@gmail.com>"]
 
 [deps]
diff --git a/src/ParallelTestRunner.jl b/src/ParallelTestRunner.jl
index 2fe7b45..6e91033 100644
--- a/src/ParallelTestRunner.jl
+++ b/src/ParallelTestRunner.jl
@@ -918,8 +918,7 @@ Several keyword arguments are also supported:
 - `stdout` and `stderr`: I/O streams to write to (default: `Base.stdout` and `Base.stderr`)
 - `max_worker_rss`: RSS threshold where a worker will be restarted once it is reached.
 - `serial`: A vector of test names (keys of `testsuite`) that should be run one at a time
-  instead of in parallel. An `ArgumentError` is thrown if any name is not found in the
-  testsuite; names that are valid but deselected by command-line filtering are ignored.
+  instead of in parallel.
 - `serial_position`: When to run serial tests relative to the parallel batch.
   Must be `:before` (default) or `:after`.
 - `recycle_on_failure`: Whether to recycle a worker after any test that did not pass
@@ -1048,13 +1047,6 @@ function runtests(mod::Module, args::ParsedArgs;
     serial_position in (:before, :after) ||
         throw(ArgumentError("serial_position must be :before or :after, got :$serial_position"))
 
-    # validate serial names against the full testsuite, so that typos are caught even when
-    # command-line filtering would silently drop them below
-    unknown_serial = setdiff(serial, keys(testsuite))
-    if !isempty(unknown_serial)
-        throw(ArgumentError("serial test(s) not found in testsuite: $(join(sort!(unknown_serial), ", "))"))
-    end
-
     # filter tests
     filter_tests!(testsuite, args)
 
diff --git a/test/runtests.jl b/test/runtests.jl
index b52d4cc..8a6e1bb 100644
--- a/test/runtests.jl
+++ b/test/runtests.jl
@@ -1118,18 +1118,6 @@ end
         end
     end
 
-    @testset "unknown serial name throws in runtests" begin
-        # the typo must be reported even though positional filtering would have
-        # silently dropped it from the serial list
-        testsuite = Dict("a" => :(), "b" => :())
-        @test_throws ArgumentError runtests(ParallelTestRunner, String[];
-                                            testsuite, stdout=devnull, stderr=devnull,
-                                            serial=["a", "typo"])
-        @test_throws ArgumentError runtests(ParallelTestRunner, ["a"];
-                                            testsuite, stdout=devnull, stderr=devnull,
-                                            serial=["a", "typo"])
-    end
-
     @testset "serial tests run before parallel (default)" begin
         serial_test_body = quote
             children = _count_child_pids($(getpid()))