diff --git a/app/services/projects/update_pages_service.rb b/app/services/projects/update_pages_service.rb
index 5bf8208e0357da86160167664ff234827bc66c98..9c8877be14e4f342068effd01391c5cc762dcb1a 100644
--- a/app/services/projects/update_pages_service.rb
+++ b/app/services/projects/update_pages_service.rb
@@ -178,6 +178,9 @@ module Projects
 
     def latest_sha
       project.commit(build.ref).try(:sha).to_s
+    ensure
+      # Close any file descriptors that were opened and free libgit2 buffers
+      project.cleanup
     end
 
     def sha
diff --git a/changelogs/unreleased/sh-cleanup-pages-worker.yml b/changelogs/unreleased/sh-cleanup-pages-worker.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..c26e1342dd28fa242fae25d14f9b1f06b50f0017
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/unreleased/sh-cleanup-pages-worker.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+title: Free open file descriptors and libgit2 buffers in UpdatePagesService
+merge_request:
+author:
+type: performance