diff --git a/esphome/components/api/proto.h b/esphome/components/api/proto.h
index 9666b7e9ff..be87dac6f6 100644
--- a/esphome/components/api/proto.h
+++ b/esphome/components/api/proto.h
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ class ProtoVarInt {
 
   /// Parse a varint from buffer. consumed must be a valid pointer (not null).
   static optional<ProtoVarInt> parse(const uint8_t *buffer, uint32_t len, uint32_t *consumed) {
-#ifdef ESPHOME_DEBUG_API
+#ifdef DEBUG
     assert(consumed != nullptr);
 #endif
     if (len == 0)
@@ -922,7 +922,7 @@ inline void ProtoWriteBuffer::encode_message(uint32_t field_id, const ProtoMessa
   // Now encode the message content - it will append to the buffer
   value.encode(*this);
 
-#ifdef ESPHOME_DEBUG_API
+#ifdef DEBUG
   // Verify that the encoded size matches what we calculated
   assert(this->buffer_->size() == begin + varint_length_bytes + msg_length_bytes);
 #endif
diff --git a/esphome/core/defines.h b/esphome/core/defines.h
index a2a967985e..0c888933bf 100644
--- a/esphome/core/defines.h
+++ b/esphome/core/defines.h
@@ -14,7 +14,6 @@
 #define ESPHOME_PROJECT_VERSION_30 "v2"
 #define ESPHOME_VARIANT "ESP32"
 #define ESPHOME_DEBUG_SCHEDULER
-#define ESPHOME_DEBUG_API
 
 // Default threading model for static analysis (ESP32 is multi-threaded with atomics)
 #define ESPHOME_THREAD_MULTI_ATOMICS
diff --git a/tests/components/api/common-base.yaml b/tests/components/api/common-base.yaml
index c24045b28a..c766b61b13 100644
--- a/tests/components/api/common-base.yaml
+++ b/tests/components/api/common-base.yaml
@@ -1,7 +1,4 @@
 esphome:
-  platformio_options:
-    build_flags:
-      - -DESPHOME_DEBUG_API
   on_boot:
     then:
       - wait_until: