diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 04e353c5782..2936e3a329f 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -20,6 +20,9 @@ Core and Builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #28480: Fix error building socket module when multithreading is
+  disabled.
+
 - Issue #24452: Make webbrowser support Chrome on Mac OS X.
 
 - Issue #20766: Fix references leaked by pdb in the handling of SIGINT
diff --git a/Modules/socketmodule.c b/Modules/socketmodule.c
index f53eadeb6c0..2620d5673bd 100644
--- a/Modules/socketmodule.c
+++ b/Modules/socketmodule.c
@@ -664,6 +664,7 @@ internal_setblocking(PySocketSockObject *s, int block)
     result = 0;
 
   done:
+    ;  /* necessary for --without-threads flag */
     Py_END_ALLOW_THREADS
 
     if (result) {