diff --git a/django/db/models/query.py b/django/db/models/query.py
index 006feb6427..e8d9006b48 100644
--- a/django/db/models/query.py
+++ b/django/db/models/query.py
@@ -484,9 +484,7 @@ class QuerySet(object):
                 return obj, created
         for k, v in six.iteritems(defaults):
             setattr(obj, k, v)
-
-        with transaction.atomic(using=self.db, savepoint=False):
-            obj.save(using=self.db)
+        obj.save(using=self.db)
         return obj, False
 
     def _create_object_from_params(self, lookup, params):
diff --git a/docs/releases/1.10.txt b/docs/releases/1.10.txt
index 853955f936..10a517f82d 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.10.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/1.10.txt
@@ -363,6 +363,10 @@ Miscellaneous
   :class:`~django.http.HttpResponse` are now closed immediately instead of when
   the WSGI server calls ``close()`` on the response.
 
+* A redundant ``transaction.atomic()`` call in ``QuerySet.update_or_create()``
+  is removed. This may affect query counts tested by
+  ``TransactionTestCase.assertNumQueries()``.
+
 .. _deprecated-features-1.10:
 
 Features deprecated in 1.10