diff --git a/app/models/ticket.rb b/app/models/ticket.rb
index ebf748bef..2b965c3f0 100644
--- a/app/models/ticket.rb
+++ b/app/models/ticket.rb
@@ -311,6 +311,12 @@ returns
       # quiet update of reassign of articles
       Ticket::Article.where(ticket_id: id).update_all(['ticket_id = ?', data[:ticket_id]]) # rubocop:disable Rails/SkipsModelValidations
 
+      # mark target ticket as updated
+      # otherwise the "received_merge" history entry
+      # will be the same as the last updated_at
+      # which might be a long time ago
+      target_ticket.updated_at = Time.zone.now
+
       # add merge event to both ticket's history (Issue #2469 - Add information "Ticket merged" to History)
       target_ticket.history_log(
         'received_merge',
diff --git a/spec/models/ticket_spec.rb b/spec/models/ticket_spec.rb
index a009a53ae..949a61419 100644
--- a/spec/models/ticket_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/models/ticket_spec.rb
@@ -81,6 +81,14 @@ RSpec.describe Ticket, type: :model do
       context 'when merging' do
         let(:merge_user) { create(:user) }
 
+        before do
+          # create target ticket early
+          # to avoid a race condition
+          # when creating the history entries
+          target_ticket
+          travel 5.minutes
+        end
+
         it 'creates history entries in both the origin ticket and the target ticket' do
           ticket.merge_to(ticket_id: target_ticket.id, user_id: merge_user.id)