diff --git a/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci-include/extract.ts b/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci-include/extract.ts
index 026f51e80760a9e0af7e58c9ea5124014d52b128..60eb93772a183a00cf2e94376d15c967eb2211bf 100644
--- a/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci-include/extract.ts
+++ b/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci-include/extract.ts
@@ -14,7 +14,6 @@ import type {
   GitlabIncludeProject,
   GitlabPipeline,
 } from '../gitlabci/types';
-import { replaceReferenceTags } from '../gitlabci/utils';
 import type { PackageDependency, PackageFileContent } from '../types';
 
 function extractDepFromIncludeFile(
@@ -76,7 +75,7 @@ export function extractPackageFile(
       : null;
   try {
     // TODO: use schema (#9610)
-    const docs = parseYaml<GitlabPipeline>(replaceReferenceTags(content), {
+    const docs = parseYaml<GitlabPipeline>(content, {
       uniqueKeys: false,
     });
     for (const doc of docs) {
diff --git a/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/common.spec.ts b/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/common.spec.ts
index 9c491ef848f968a696e2de2cb4b84677d9d81a4c..5f55bcdb4b83ec7a322bb338d1b12513a10d83a6 100644
--- a/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/common.spec.ts
+++ b/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/common.spec.ts
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 import { codeBlock } from 'common-tags';
 import { parseSingleYaml } from '../../../util/yaml';
 import type { GitlabPipeline } from '../gitlabci/types';
-import { replaceReferenceTags } from '../gitlabci/utils';
 import {
   filterIncludeFromGitlabPipeline,
   isGitlabIncludeComponent,
@@ -12,7 +11,7 @@ import {
 
 // TODO: use schema (#9610)
 const pipeline = parseSingleYaml<GitlabPipeline>(
-  replaceReferenceTags(codeBlock`
+  codeBlock`
     include:
     - project: mikebryant/include-source-example
       file: /template.yaml
@@ -25,7 +24,7 @@ const pipeline = parseSingleYaml<GitlabPipeline>(
 
     script:
     - !reference [.setup, script]
-    - !reference [arbitrary job name with space and no starting dot, nested1, nested2, nested3]`),
+    - !reference [arbitrary job name with space and no starting dot, nested1, nested2, nested3]`,
 );
 const includeLocal = { local: 'something' };
 const includeProject = { project: 'something' };
@@ -37,7 +36,15 @@ describe('modules/manager/gitlabci/common', () => {
       const filtered_pipeline = filterIncludeFromGitlabPipeline(pipeline);
       expect(filtered_pipeline).not.toHaveProperty('include');
       expect(filtered_pipeline).toEqual({
-        script: [null, null],
+        script: [
+          ['.setup', 'script'],
+          [
+            'arbitrary job name with space and no starting dot',
+            'nested1',
+            'nested2',
+            'nested3',
+          ],
+        ],
       });
     });
   });
diff --git a/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/utils.spec.ts b/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/utils.spec.ts
index 3c563ce93cbb93298a619dea146bbae26ba27f81..0b89036dd8f5df4724949b7979d166b1dd856dd0 100644
--- a/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/utils.spec.ts
+++ b/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/utils.spec.ts
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
-import { Fixtures } from '../../../../test/fixtures';
 import type { PackageDependency } from '../types';
-import { getGitlabDep, replaceReferenceTags } from './utils';
+import { getGitlabDep } from './utils';
 
 describe('modules/manager/gitlabci/utils', () => {
   describe('getGitlabDep', () => {
@@ -82,12 +81,4 @@ describe('modules/manager/gitlabci/utils', () => {
       });
     });
   });
-
-  describe('replaceReferenceTags', () => {
-    it('replaces all !reference tags with empty strings', () => {
-      const yamlFileReferenceConfig = Fixtures.get('gitlab-ci.reference.yaml');
-      const replaced = replaceReferenceTags(yamlFileReferenceConfig);
-      expect(replaced).not.toContain('!reference');
-    });
-  });
 });
diff --git a/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/utils.ts b/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/utils.ts
index e69552b2a61f69aae03ee85ac37d6cdf398cd706..1a861897df735d31d0fff6b270d013c5d6cb8dad 100644
--- a/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/utils.ts
+++ b/lib/modules/manager/gitlabci/utils.ts
@@ -2,19 +2,6 @@ import { regEx } from '../../../util/regex';
 import { getDep } from '../dockerfile/extract';
 import type { PackageDependency } from '../types';
 
-const re = /!reference \[[^\]]+\]/g;
-
-/**
- * Replaces GitLab reference tags before parsing, because our yaml parser cannot process them anyway.
- * @param content pipeline yaml
- * @returns replaced pipeline content
- * https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/#reference-tags
- */
-export function replaceReferenceTags(content: string): string {
-  const res = content.replace(re, '');
-  return res;
-}
-
 const depProxyRe = regEx(
   `(?<prefix>\\$\\{?CI_DEPENDENCY_PROXY_(?:DIRECT_)?GROUP_IMAGE_PREFIX\\}?/)(?<depName>.+)`,
 );