diff --git a/.dockerignore b/.dockerignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..84f915fed9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.dockerignore
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+.benchmarks
+.coverage
+.mypy_cache
+.pytest_cache
+.tox
+.vscode
+aiida_core.egg-info
+docs/build
+pip-wheel-metadata
+**/.DS_Store
+**/*.pyc
+**/__pycache__