diff --git a/doc/release/upcoming_changes/28669.new_feature.rst b/doc/release/upcoming_changes/28669.new_feature.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..2953a5123ccc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/release/upcoming_changes/28669.new_feature.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* The type parameter of ``np.dtype`` now defaults to ``typing.Any``.
+  This way, static type-checkers will infer ``dtype: np.dtype`` as
+  ``dtype: np.dtype[Any]``, without reporting an error.
diff --git a/numpy/__init__.pyi b/numpy/__init__.pyi
index f4ae9eed00c2..b2e95a5feccb 100644
--- a/numpy/__init__.pyi
+++ b/numpy/__init__.pyi
@@ -816,7 +816,7 @@ _2DShapeT_co = TypeVar("_2DShapeT_co", bound=_2D, covariant=True)
 _1NShapeT = TypeVar("_1NShapeT", bound=tuple[L[1], Unpack[tuple[L[1], ...]]])  # (1,) | (1, 1) | (1, 1, 1) | ...
 
 _SCT = TypeVar("_SCT", bound=generic)
-_SCT_co = TypeVar("_SCT_co", bound=generic, covariant=True)
+_SCT_co = TypeVar("_SCT_co", bound=generic, default=Any, covariant=True)
 _NumberT = TypeVar("_NumberT", bound=number[Any])
 _RealNumberT = TypeVar("_RealNumberT", bound=floating | integer)
 _FloatingT_co = TypeVar("_FloatingT_co", bound=floating[Any], default=floating[Any], covariant=True)