diff --git a/doc/source/user_guide/io.rst b/doc/source/user_guide/io.rst
index cf61735062d2f..b3ad23e0d4104 100644
--- a/doc/source/user_guide/io.rst
+++ b/doc/source/user_guide/io.rst
@@ -3479,6 +3479,7 @@ See the :ref:`cookbook<cookbook.excel>` for some advanced strategies.
      then `odf <https://pypi.org/project/odfpy/>`_ will be used.
    - Otherwise if ``path_or_buffer`` is an xls format, ``xlrd`` will be used.
    - Otherwise if ``path_or_buffer`` is in xlsb format, ``pyxlsb`` will be used.
+   - Otherwise ``openpyxl`` will be used.
 
 .. _io.excel_reader:
 
diff --git a/pandas/io/excel/_base.py b/pandas/io/excel/_base.py
index 0343b21fa7622..6b787c0f4ca49 100644
--- a/pandas/io/excel/_base.py
+++ b/pandas/io/excel/_base.py
@@ -177,6 +177,7 @@
       then `odf <https://pypi.org/project/odfpy/>`_ will be used.
     - Otherwise if ``path_or_buffer`` is an xls format, ``xlrd`` will be used.
     - Otherwise if ``path_or_buffer`` is in xlsb format, ``pyxlsb`` will be used.
+    - Otherwise ``openpyxl`` will be used.
 converters : dict, default None
     Dict of functions for converting values in certain columns. Keys can
     either be integers or column labels, values are functions that take one