diff --git a/kittens/ssh/main.py b/kittens/ssh/main.py
index 8b94e7990..c9a630094 100644
--- a/kittens/ssh/main.py
+++ b/kittens/ssh/main.py
@@ -242,7 +242,7 @@ def prepare_exec_cmd(remote_args: Sequence[str], is_python: bool) -> str:
     if is_python:
         return standard_b64encode(' '.join(remote_args).encode('utf-8')).decode('ascii')
     args = ' '.join(c.replace("'", """'"'"'""") for c in remote_args)
-    return f"""exec "$login_shell" -c '{args}'"""
+    return f"""unset KITTY_SHELL_INTEGRATION; exec "$login_shell" -c '{args}'"""
 
 
 def prepare_export_home_cmd(ssh_opts: SSHOptions, is_python: bool) -> str:
diff --git a/shell-integration/ssh/bootstrap.py b/shell-integration/ssh/bootstrap.py
index e4976e08d..294ec0382 100644
--- a/shell-integration/ssh/bootstrap.py
+++ b/shell-integration/ssh/bootstrap.py
@@ -276,6 +276,7 @@ def main():
     ksi = frozenset(filter(None, os.environ.get('KITTY_SHELL_INTEGRATION', '').split()))
     exec_cmd = b'EXEC_CMD'
     if exec_cmd:
+        os.environ.pop('KITTY_SHELL_INTEGRATION', None)
         cmd = base64.standard_b64decode(exec_cmd).decode('utf-8')
         os.execlp(login_shell, os.path.basename(login_shell), '-c', cmd)
     TEST_SCRIPT  # noqa