diff --git a/api/bazel/BUILD b/api/bazel/BUILD
index 3fa1544c1ae6..f68f07c91146 100644
--- a/api/bazel/BUILD
+++ b/api/bazel/BUILD
@@ -19,7 +19,10 @@ exports_files([
 
 go_proto_compiler(
     name = "vtprotobuf_plugin_go",
-    options = ["features=marshal_strict+size"],
+    options = [
+        "features=marshal_strict+size",
+        "buildTag=vtprotobuf",
+    ],
     plugin = "@com_github_planetscale_vtprotobuf//cmd/protoc-gen-go-vtproto",
     suffix = "_vtproto.pb.go",
     valid_archive = False,
diff --git a/bazel/dependency_imports.bzl b/bazel/dependency_imports.bzl
index 9e228961a686..fc9929247b57 100644
--- a/bazel/dependency_imports.bzl
+++ b/bazel/dependency_imports.bzl
@@ -151,8 +151,8 @@ def envoy_dependency_imports(go_version = GO_VERSION, jq_version = JQ_VERSION, y
     go_repository(
         name = "com_github_planetscale_vtprotobuf",
         importpath = "github.com/planetscale/vtprotobuf",
-        sum = "h1:nve54OLsoKDQhb8ZnnHHUyvAK3vjBiwTEJeC3UsqzJ8=",
-        version = "v0.5.1-0.20231205081218-d930d8ac92f8",
+        sum = "h1:GFCKgmp0tecUJ0sJuv4pzYCqS9+RGSn52M3FUwPs+uo=",
+        version = "v0.6.1-0.20240319094008-0393e58bdf10",
         build_external = "external",
     )
 
diff --git a/ci/do_ci.sh b/ci/do_ci.sh
index 2cecbff3f793..9f0208fa49fd 100755
--- a/ci/do_ci.sh
+++ b/ci/do_ci.sh
@@ -308,13 +308,6 @@ case $CI_TARGET in
                 if [[ "$GO_FILE" = *.validate.go ]]; then
                     sed -i '1s;^;//go:build !disable_pgv\n;' "$OUTPUT_DIR/$(basename "$GO_FILE")"
                 fi
-                # TODO(https://github.com/planetscale/vtprotobuf/pull/122) do this directly in the generator.
-                # Make vtprotobuf opt-in as it has some impact on binary sizes
-                if [[ "$GO_FILE" = *_vtproto.pb.go ]]; then
-                    if ! grep -q 'package ignore' "$GO_FILE"; then
-                        sed -i '1s;^;//go:build vtprotobuf\n// +build vtprotobuf\n;' "$OUTPUT_DIR/$(basename "$GO_FILE")"
-                    fi
-                fi
             done <<< "$(find "$INPUT_DIR" -name "*.go")"
         done
         ;;