diff --git a/gnu-system.am b/gnu-system.am
index fe6900abf0..d36920cba2 100644
--- a/gnu-system.am
+++ b/gnu-system.am
@@ -366,7 +366,6 @@ dist_patch_DATA =						\
   gnu/packages/patches/guix-test-networking.patch		\
   gnu/packages/patches/gtkglext-disable-disable-deprecated.patch \
   gnu/packages/patches/hop-bigloo-4.0b.patch			\
-  gnu/packages/patches/icu4c-test-date-format.patch		\
   gnu/packages/patches/inkscape-stray-comma.patch               \
   gnu/packages/patches/jbig2dec-ignore-testtest.patch		\
   gnu/packages/patches/kmod-module-directory.patch		\
diff --git a/gnu/packages/icu4c.scm b/gnu/packages/icu4c.scm
index 5963fe4276..ea5aecc21f 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/icu4c.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/icu4c.scm
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ (define-module (gnu packages icu4c)
 (define-public icu4c
   (package
    (name "icu4c")
-   (version "53.1")
+   (version "54.1")
    (source (origin
             (method url-fetch)
             (uri (string-append "http://download.icu-project.org/files/icu4c/"
@@ -37,8 +37,7 @@ (define-public icu4c
                    (string-map (lambda (x) (if (char=? x #\.) #\_ x)) version)
                    "-src.tgz"))
             (sha256
-             (base32 "0a4sg9w054640zncb13lhrcjqn7yg1qilwd1mczc4w60maslz9vg"))
-            (patches (list (search-patch "icu4c-test-date-format.patch")))))
+             (base32 "1cwapgjmvrcv1n2wjspj3vahidg596gjfp4jn1gcb4baralcjayl"))))
    (build-system gnu-build-system)
    (inputs
     `(("patchelf" ,patchelf)
@@ -59,7 +58,7 @@ (define-public icu4c
         'configure 'patch-configure
         (lambda _
           ;; patch out two occurrences of /bin/sh from configure script
-          ;; that might have disappeared in a release later than 52.1
+          ;; that might have disappeared in a release later than 54.1
           (substitute* "configure"
             (("`/bin/sh")
              (string-append "`" (which "bash")))))
diff --git a/gnu/packages/patches/icu4c-test-date-format.patch b/gnu/packages/patches/icu4c-test-date-format.patch
deleted file mode 100644
index d7f0df98a6..0000000000
--- a/gnu/packages/patches/icu4c-test-date-format.patch
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,17 +0,0 @@
-Starting with the switch to GCC 4.8.3, we observed this test failure.
-Changing "34" to "134" means that we expect the date to be parsed as
-"2034", not "1934", which seems consistent with the line above.
-
-Reported at <http://bugs.icu-project.org/trac/ticket/10960>.
-
---- icu/source/test/intltest/dtfmttst.cpp	2014-06-16 10:35:46.000000000 +0200
-+++ icu/source/test/intltest/dtfmttst.cpp	2014-06-16 10:35:52.000000000 +0200
-@@ -1129,7 +1129,7 @@ DateFormatTest::TestTwoDigitYear()
-         return;
-     }
-     parse2DigitYear(fmt, "5/6/17", date(117, UCAL_JUNE, 5));
--    parse2DigitYear(fmt, "4/6/34", date(34, UCAL_JUNE, 4));
-+    parse2DigitYear(fmt, "4/6/34", date(134, UCAL_JUNE, 4));
- }
- 
- // -------------------------------------