diff --git a/.changeset/deep-bears-see.md b/.changeset/deep-bears-see.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..9f59b31d12
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/deep-bears-see.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+'svelte': patch
+---
+
+fix: merge consecutive large text nodes
diff --git a/packages/svelte/src/internal/client/dom/operations.js b/packages/svelte/src/internal/client/dom/operations.js
index 479c2ba0a5..61a48bcbfb 100644
--- a/packages/svelte/src/internal/client/dom/operations.js
+++ b/packages/svelte/src/internal/client/dom/operations.js
@@ -122,6 +122,10 @@ export function child(node, is_text) {
 		return text;
 	}
 
+	if (is_text) {
+		merge_text_nodes(/** @type {Text} */ (child));
+	}
+
 	set_hydrate_node(child);
 	return child;
 }
@@ -142,14 +146,18 @@ export function first_child(node, is_text = false) {
 		return first;
 	}
 
-	// if an {expression} is empty during SSR, there might be no
-	// text node to hydrate — we must therefore create one
-	if (is_text && hydrate_node?.nodeType !== TEXT_NODE) {
-		var text = create_text();
+	if (is_text) {
+		// if an {expression} is empty during SSR, there might be no
+		// text node to hydrate — we must therefore create one
+		if (hydrate_node?.nodeType !== TEXT_NODE) {
+			var text = create_text();
 
-		hydrate_node?.before(text);
-		set_hydrate_node(text);
-		return text;
+			hydrate_node?.before(text);
+			set_hydrate_node(text);
+			return text;
+		}
+
+		merge_text_nodes(/** @type {Text} */ (hydrate_node));
 	}
 
 	return hydrate_node;
@@ -175,20 +183,24 @@ export function sibling(node, count = 1, is_text = false) {
 		return next_sibling;
 	}
 
-	// if a sibling {expression} is empty during SSR, there might be no
-	// text node to hydrate — we must therefore create one
-	if (is_text && next_sibling?.nodeType !== TEXT_NODE) {
-		var text = create_text();
-		// If the next sibling is `null` and we're handling text then it's because
-		// the SSR content was empty for the text, so we need to generate a new text
-		// node and insert it after the last sibling
-		if (next_sibling === null) {
-			last_sibling?.after(text);
-		} else {
-			next_sibling.before(text);
+	if (is_text) {
+		// if a sibling {expression} is empty during SSR, there might be no
+		// text node to hydrate — we must therefore create one
+		if (next_sibling?.nodeType !== TEXT_NODE) {
+			var text = create_text();
+			// If the next sibling is `null` and we're handling text then it's because
+			// the SSR content was empty for the text, so we need to generate a new text
+			// node and insert it after the last sibling
+			if (next_sibling === null) {
+				last_sibling?.after(text);
+			} else {
+				next_sibling.before(text);
+			}
+			set_hydrate_node(text);
+			return text;
 		}
-		set_hydrate_node(text);
-		return text;
+
+		merge_text_nodes(/** @type {Text} */ (next_sibling));
 	}
 
 	set_hydrate_node(next_sibling);
@@ -258,3 +270,24 @@ export function set_attribute(element, key, value = '') {
 	}
 	return element.setAttribute(key, value);
 }
+
+/**
+ * Browsers split text nodes larger than 65536 bytes when parsing.
+ * For hydration to succeed, we need to stitch them back together
+ * @param {Text} text
+ */
+export function merge_text_nodes(text) {
+	if (/** @type {string} */ (text.nodeValue).length < 65536) {
+		return;
+	}
+
+	let next = text.nextSibling;
+
+	while (next !== null && next.nodeType === TEXT_NODE) {
+		next.remove();
+
+		/** @type {string} */ (text.nodeValue) += /** @type {string} */ (next.nodeValue);
+
+		next = text.nextSibling;
+	}
+}
diff --git a/packages/svelte/src/internal/client/dom/template.js b/packages/svelte/src/internal/client/dom/template.js
index 0d827218bc..567fbeabf0 100644
--- a/packages/svelte/src/internal/client/dom/template.js
+++ b/packages/svelte/src/internal/client/dom/template.js
@@ -4,11 +4,13 @@ import { hydrate_next, hydrate_node, hydrating, set_hydrate_node } from './hydra
 import {
 	create_text,
 	get_first_child,
+	get_next_sibling,
 	is_firefox,
 	create_element,
 	create_fragment,
 	create_comment,
-	set_attribute
+	set_attribute,
+	merge_text_nodes
 } from './operations.js';
 import { create_fragment_from_html } from './reconciler.js';
 import { active_effect } from '../runtime.js';
@@ -310,6 +312,8 @@ export function text(value = '') {
 		// if an {expression} is empty during SSR, we need to insert an empty text node
 		node.before((node = create_text()));
 		set_hydrate_node(node);
+	} else {
+		merge_text_nodes(/** @type {Text} */ (node));
 	}
 
 	assign_nodes(node, node);
diff --git a/packages/svelte/tests/runtime-browser/samples/hydrate-large-text-node/_config.js b/packages/svelte/tests/runtime-browser/samples/hydrate-large-text-node/_config.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..3a52b1ccd3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/svelte/tests/runtime-browser/samples/hydrate-large-text-node/_config.js
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+import { test } from '../../assert';
+
+// Browsers split text nodes > 65536 characters into multiple consecutive text nodes
+// during HTML parsing. This test verifies that hydration correctly merges them.
+const LARGE_TEXT = 'x'.repeat(70000);
+
+export default test({
+	mode: ['hydrate'],
+	skip_mode: ['client'],
+
+	props: {
+		text: LARGE_TEXT
+	},
+
+	async test({ assert, target }) {
+		const [p] = target.querySelectorAll('p');
+
+		// The text content should be preserved after hydration
+		assert.equal(p.textContent?.trim(), LARGE_TEXT);
+		// After hydration, there should be only one text node (plus possible comment nodes)
+		const textNodes = [...p.childNodes].filter((node) => node.nodeType === 3);
+		assert.equal(textNodes.length, 1, `Expected 1 text node, got ${textNodes.length}`);
+	}
+});
diff --git a/packages/svelte/tests/runtime-browser/samples/hydrate-large-text-node/main.svelte b/packages/svelte/tests/runtime-browser/samples/hydrate-large-text-node/main.svelte
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d65358dabc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/svelte/tests/runtime-browser/samples/hydrate-large-text-node/main.svelte
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+<script>
+	let { text } = $props();
+</script>
+
+<p>{text}</p>
diff --git a/packages/svelte/tests/runtime-browser/test.ts b/packages/svelte/tests/runtime-browser/test.ts
index 525f9ba89f..54cdc0f8be 100644
--- a/packages/svelte/tests/runtime-browser/test.ts
+++ b/packages/svelte/tests/runtime-browser/test.ts
@@ -213,7 +213,7 @@ async function run_test(
 		}
 
 		// uncomment to see what was generated
-		// fs.writeFileSync(`${test_dir}/_actual.js`, build_result.outputFiles[0].text);
+		// fs.writeFileSync(`${test_dir}/_output/bundle-${hydrate}.js`, build_result.outputFiles[0].text);
 		const test_result = await page.evaluate(
 			build_result.outputFiles[0].text + ";test.default(document.querySelector('main'))"
 		);