diff --git a/CHANGES.rst b/CHANGES.rst
index 5efd62cd..6493a5cb 100644
--- a/CHANGES.rst
+++ b/CHANGES.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,14 @@
+Version 0.13.0
+--------------
+
+Unreleased
+
+-   default ``hashlib.md5`` may not be available in FIPS builds. We
+    now do not access it at import time on ``FileSystemCache``so developers
+    have time to change the default.
+    ``hashlib.md5`` will be lazy loaded when a new default is not provided
+
+
 Version 0.12.0
 --------------
 
diff --git a/src/cachelib/file.py b/src/cachelib/file.py
index 02a3b0e1..43748b33 100644
--- a/src/cachelib/file.py
+++ b/src/cachelib/file.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import errno
+import hashlib
 import logging
 import os
 import platform
@@ -7,7 +8,6 @@
 import tempfile
 import typing as _t
 from contextlib import contextmanager
-from hashlib import md5
 from pathlib import Path
 from time import sleep
 from time import time
@@ -16,6 +16,14 @@
 from cachelib.serializers import FileSystemSerializer
 
 
+def _lazy_md5(string: bytes = b"") -> _t.Any:
+    """Don't access ``hashlib.md5`` until runtime. FIPS builds may not include
+    md5, in which case the import and use as a default would fail before the
+    developer can configure something else.
+    """
+    return hashlib.md5(string)
+
+
 class FileSystemCache(BaseCache):
     """A cache that stores the items on the file system.  This cache depends
     on being the only user of the `cache_dir`.  Make absolutely sure that
@@ -38,6 +46,8 @@ class FileSystemCache(BaseCache):
     _fs_transaction_suffix = ".__wz_cache"
     #: keep amount of files in a cache element
     _fs_count_file = "__wz_cache_count"
+    #: default file name hashing method
+    _default_hash_method = staticmethod(_lazy_md5)
 
     serializer = FileSystemSerializer()
 
@@ -47,12 +57,15 @@ def __init__(
         threshold: int = 500,
         default_timeout: int = 300,
         mode: _t.Optional[int] = None,
-        hash_method: _t.Any = md5,
+        hash_method: _t.Any = None,
     ):
         BaseCache.__init__(self, default_timeout)
         self._path = cache_dir
         self._threshold = threshold
-        self._hash_method = hash_method
+
+        self._hash_method = self._default_hash_method
+        if hash_method is not None:
+            self._hash_method = hash_method
 
         # Mode set by user takes precedence. If no mode has
         # been given, we need to set the correct default based
diff --git a/tests/test_file_system_cache.py b/tests/test_file_system_cache.py
index ddf20442..9eda8c25 100644
--- a/tests/test_file_system_cache.py
+++ b/tests/test_file_system_cache.py
@@ -42,9 +42,21 @@ def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
         super().__init__(*args, hash_method=hashlib.sha256, **kwargs)
 
 
+class CustomDefaultHashingMethodCache(FileSystemCache):
+    _default_hash_method = hashlib.sha256
+
+    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+
+
 @pytest.fixture(
     autouse=True,
-    params=[FileSystemCache, CustomSerializerCache, CustomHashingMethodCache],
+    params=[
+        FileSystemCache,
+        CustomSerializerCache,
+        CustomHashingMethodCache,
+        CustomDefaultHashingMethodCache,
+    ],
 )
 def cache_factory(request, tmpdir):
     def _factory(self, *args, **kwargs):