diff --git a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/internal/ShardSearchRequest.java b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/internal/ShardSearchRequest.java
index cb3f1e80a393c..a6d7eb837941d 100644
--- a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/internal/ShardSearchRequest.java
+++ b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/internal/ShardSearchRequest.java
@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@
 import org.elasticsearch.search.Scroll;
 import org.elasticsearch.search.SearchService;
 import org.elasticsearch.search.SearchSortValuesAndFormats;
+import org.elasticsearch.search.builder.PointInTimeBuilder;
 import org.elasticsearch.search.builder.SearchSourceBuilder;
 import org.elasticsearch.search.query.QuerySearchResult;
 import org.elasticsearch.search.sort.FieldSortBuilder;
@@ -212,7 +213,7 @@ public ShardSearchRequest(
         this.shardRequestIndex = shardRequestIndex;
         this.numberOfShards = numberOfShards;
         this.searchType = searchType;
-        this.source = source;
+        this.source(source);
         this.requestCache = requestCache;
         this.aliasFilter = aliasFilter;
         this.indexBoost = indexBoost;
@@ -285,7 +286,7 @@ public ShardSearchRequest(ShardSearchRequest clone) {
         this.searchType = clone.searchType;
         this.numberOfShards = clone.numberOfShards;
         this.scroll = clone.scroll;
-        this.source = clone.source;
+        this.source(clone.source);
         this.aliasFilter = clone.aliasFilter;
         this.indexBoost = clone.indexBoost;
         this.nowInMillis = clone.nowInMillis;
@@ -392,6 +393,13 @@ public void setAliasFilter(AliasFilter aliasFilter) {
     }
 
     public void source(SearchSourceBuilder source) {
+        if (source != null && source.pointInTimeBuilder() != null) {
+            // Discard the actual point in time as data nodes don't use it to reduce the memory usage and the serialization cost
+            // of shard-level search requests. However, we need to assign as a dummy PIT instead of null as we verify PIT for
+            // slice requests on data nodes.
+            source = source.shallowCopy();
+            source.pointInTimeBuilder(new PointInTimeBuilder(""));
+        }
         this.source = source;
     }
 
diff --git a/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/SearchServiceTests.java b/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/SearchServiceTests.java
index ca7ca2f47d4eb..9a95ab04bab4c 100644
--- a/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/SearchServiceTests.java
+++ b/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/SearchServiceTests.java
@@ -22,6 +22,10 @@
 import org.elasticsearch.action.OriginalIndices;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.index.IndexResponse;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.search.ClearScrollRequest;
+import org.elasticsearch.action.search.ClosePointInTimeAction;
+import org.elasticsearch.action.search.ClosePointInTimeRequest;
+import org.elasticsearch.action.search.OpenPointInTimeAction;
+import org.elasticsearch.action.search.OpenPointInTimeRequest;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.search.SearchPhaseExecutionException;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.search.SearchRequest;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.search.SearchResponse;
@@ -78,6 +82,7 @@
 import org.elasticsearch.search.aggregations.bucket.terms.TermsAggregationBuilder;
 import org.elasticsearch.search.aggregations.support.AggregationContext;
 import org.elasticsearch.search.aggregations.support.ValueType;
+import org.elasticsearch.search.builder.PointInTimeBuilder;
 import org.elasticsearch.search.builder.SearchSourceBuilder;
 import org.elasticsearch.search.fetch.FetchSearchResult;
 import org.elasticsearch.search.fetch.ShardFetchRequest;
@@ -105,6 +110,7 @@
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Locale;
 import java.util.Map;
+import java.util.concurrent.CopyOnWriteArrayList;
 import java.util.concurrent.CountDownLatch;
 import java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException;
 import java.util.concurrent.Semaphore;
@@ -113,6 +119,7 @@
 import java.util.function.Consumer;
 import java.util.function.Function;
 
+import static java.util.Collections.emptyList;
 import static java.util.Collections.emptyMap;
 import static java.util.Collections.singletonList;
 import static org.elasticsearch.action.support.WriteRequest.RefreshPolicy.IMMEDIATE;
@@ -126,6 +133,7 @@
 import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.is;
 import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.notNullValue;
 import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.startsWith;
+import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.not;
 import static org.mockito.Mockito.mock;
 
 public class SearchServiceTests extends ESSingleNodeTestCase {
@@ -1824,6 +1832,38 @@ public void testWaitOnRefreshTimeout() {
         assertThat(ex.getMessage(), containsString("Wait for seq_no [0] refreshed timed out ["));
     }
 
+    public void testMinimalSearchSourceInShardRequests() {
+        createIndex("test");
+        int numDocs = between(0, 10);
+        for (int i = 0; i < numDocs; i++) {
+            client().prepareIndex("test").setSource("id", Integer.toString(i)).get();
+        }
+        client().admin().indices().prepareRefresh("test").get();
+
+        String pitId = client().execute(
+            OpenPointInTimeAction.INSTANCE,
+            new OpenPointInTimeRequest("test").keepAlive(TimeValue.timeValueMinutes(10))
+        ).actionGet().getPointInTimeId();
+        final MockSearchService searchService = (MockSearchService) getInstanceFromNode(SearchService.class);
+        final List<ShardSearchRequest> shardRequests = new CopyOnWriteArrayList<>();
+        searchService.setOnCreateSearchContext(ctx -> shardRequests.add(ctx.request()));
+        try {
+            SearchRequest searchRequest = new SearchRequest().source(
+                new SearchSourceBuilder().size(between(numDocs, numDocs * 2)).pointInTimeBuilder(new PointInTimeBuilder(pitId))
+            );
+            final SearchResponse searchResponse = client().search(searchRequest).actionGet();
+            assertHitCount(searchResponse, numDocs);
+        } finally {
+            client().execute(ClosePointInTimeAction.INSTANCE, new ClosePointInTimeRequest(pitId)).actionGet();
+        }
+        assertThat(shardRequests, not(emptyList()));
+        for (ShardSearchRequest shardRequest : shardRequests) {
+            assertNotNull(shardRequest.source());
+            assertNotNull(shardRequest.source().pointInTimeBuilder());
+            assertThat(shardRequest.source().pointInTimeBuilder().getEncodedId(), equalTo(""));
+        }
+    }
+
     private ReaderContext createReaderContext(IndexService indexService, IndexShard indexShard) {
         return new ReaderContext(
             new ShardSearchContextId(UUIDs.randomBase64UUID(), randomNonNegativeLong()),