diff --git a/src/redis.c b/src/redis.c
index 7a563b16..1ddf2eef 100644
--- a/src/redis.c
+++ b/src/redis.c
@@ -648,19 +648,31 @@ void updateDictResizePolicy(void) {
  * No more than REDIS_DBCRON_DBS_PER_CALL databases are tested at every
  * iteration. */
 void activeExpireCycle(void) {
-    static unsigned int current_db = 0;
+    /* This function has some global state in order to continue the work
+     * incrementally across calls. */
+    static unsigned int current_db = 0; /* Last DB tested. */
+    static int timelimit_exit = 0;      /* Time limit hit in previous call? */
+
     unsigned int j, iteration = 0;
     unsigned int dbs_per_call = REDIS_DBCRON_DBS_PER_CALL;
     long long start = ustime(), timelimit;
 
-    /* Don't test more DBs than we have. */
-    if (dbs_per_call > server.dbnum) dbs_per_call = server.dbnum;
+    /* We usually should test REDIS_DBCRON_DBS_PER_CALL per iteration, with
+     * two exceptions:
+     *
+     * 1) Don't test more DBs than we have.
+     * 2) If last time we hit the time limit, we want to scan all DBs
+     * in this iteration, as there is work to do in some DB and we don't want
+     * expired keys to use memory for too much time. */
+    if (dbs_per_call > server.dbnum || timelimit_exit)
+        dbs_per_call = server.dbnum;
 
     /* We can use at max REDIS_EXPIRELOOKUPS_TIME_PERC percentage of CPU time
      * per iteration. Since this function gets called with a frequency of
      * server.hz times per second, the following is the max amount of
      * microseconds we can spend in this function. */
     timelimit = 1000000*REDIS_EXPIRELOOKUPS_TIME_PERC/server.hz/100;
+    timelimit_exit = 0;
     if (timelimit <= 0) timelimit = 1;
 
     for (j = 0; j < dbs_per_call; j++) {
@@ -718,7 +730,11 @@ void activeExpireCycle(void) {
              * caller waiting for the other active expire cycle. */
             iteration++;
             if ((iteration & 0xf) == 0 && /* check once every 16 iterations. */
-                (ustime()-start) > timelimit) return;
+                (ustime()-start) > timelimit)
+            {
+                timelimit_exit = 1;
+                return;
+            }
         } while (expired > REDIS_EXPIRELOOKUPS_PER_CRON/4);
     }
 }