diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Core_and_Builtins/2024-09-27-17-18-53.gh-issue-124642.OCjhBJ.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Core_and_Builtins/2024-09-27-17-18-53.gh-issue-124642.OCjhBJ.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..29763844a9f592
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Core_and_Builtins/2024-09-27-17-18-53.gh-issue-124642.OCjhBJ.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fixed scalability issue in free-threaded builds for lock-free reads from dictionaries in multi-threaded scenarios
diff --git a/Objects/dictobject.c b/Objects/dictobject.c
index f38ab1b2865e99..fcc9d11a9d627e 100644
--- a/Objects/dictobject.c
+++ b/Objects/dictobject.c
@@ -1488,7 +1488,7 @@ _Py_dict_lookup_threadsafe(PyDictObject *mp, PyObject *key, Py_hash_t hash, PyOb
     *value_addr = value;
     if (value != NULL) {
         assert(ix >= 0);
-        Py_INCREF(value);
+        _Py_NewRefWithLock(value);
     }
     Py_END_CRITICAL_SECTION();
     return ix;
@@ -7015,7 +7015,7 @@ _PyObject_TryGetInstanceAttribute(PyObject *obj, PyObject *name, PyObject **attr
             // Still no dict, we can read from the values
             assert(values->valid);
             value = values->values[ix];
-            *attr = Py_XNewRef(value);
+            *attr = _Py_XNewRefWithLock(value);
             success = true;
         }
 
@@ -7035,7 +7035,7 @@ _PyObject_TryGetInstanceAttribute(PyObject *obj, PyObject *name, PyObject **attr
 
     if (dict->ma_values == values && FT_ATOMIC_LOAD_UINT8(values->valid)) {
         value = _Py_atomic_load_ptr_relaxed(&values->values[ix]);
-        *attr = Py_XNewRef(value);
+        *attr = _Py_XNewRefWithLock(value);
         success = true;
     } else {
         // Caller needs to lookup from the dictionary