diff --git a/doc/source/zuul.rst b/doc/source/zuul.rst
index 21d3bae1c5..4c5a6243a8 100644
--- a/doc/source/zuul.rst
+++ b/doc/source/zuul.rst
@@ -114,6 +114,11 @@ zuul
   starting jobs for a change.  Used by zuul-server only.
   ``status_url=https://zuul.example.com/status``
 
+**status_expiry**
+  Zuul will cache the status.json file for this many seconds. This is an
+  optional value and ``1`` is used by default.
+  ``status_expiry=1``
+
 **url_pattern**
   If you are storing build logs external to the system that originally
   ran jobs and wish to link to those logs when Zuul makes comments on
diff --git a/zuul/cmd/server.py b/zuul/cmd/server.py
index 06ea780099..d7de85a45d 100755
--- a/zuul/cmd/server.py
+++ b/zuul/cmd/server.py
@@ -163,7 +163,11 @@ class Server(zuul.cmd.ZuulApp):
         merger = zuul.merger.client.MergeClient(self.config, self.sched)
         gerrit = zuul.trigger.gerrit.Gerrit(self.config, self.sched)
         timer = zuul.trigger.timer.Timer(self.config, self.sched)
-        webapp = zuul.webapp.WebApp(self.sched)
+        if self.config.has_option('zuul', 'status_expiry'):
+            cache_expiry = self.config.getint('zuul', 'status_expiry')
+        else:
+            cache_expiry = 1
+        webapp = zuul.webapp.WebApp(self.sched, cache_expiry=cache_expiry)
         rpc = zuul.rpclistener.RPCListener(self.config, self.sched)
         gerrit_reporter = zuul.reporter.gerrit.Reporter(gerrit)
         smtp_reporter = zuul.reporter.smtp.Reporter(
diff --git a/zuul/webapp.py b/zuul/webapp.py
index af558a0cba..fc52e070f3 100644
--- a/zuul/webapp.py
+++ b/zuul/webapp.py
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@
 
 import logging
 import threading
+import time
 from paste import httpserver
 import webob
 from webob import dec
@@ -23,10 +24,13 @@ from webob import dec
 class WebApp(threading.Thread):
     log = logging.getLogger("zuul.WebApp")
 
-    def __init__(self, scheduler, port=8001):
+    def __init__(self, scheduler, port=8001, cache_expiry=1):
         threading.Thread.__init__(self)
         self.scheduler = scheduler
         self.port = port
+        self.cache_expiry = cache_expiry
+        self.cache_time = 0
+        self.cache = None
         self.daemon = True
         self.server = httpserver.serve(dec.wsgify(self.app), host='0.0.0.0',
                                        port=self.port, start_loop=False)
@@ -40,11 +44,17 @@ class WebApp(threading.Thread):
     def app(self, request):
         if request.path != '/status.json':
             raise webob.exc.HTTPNotFound()
-        try:
-            ret = self.scheduler.formatStatusJSON()
-        except:
-            self.log.exception("Exception formatting status:")
-            raise
-        response = webob.Response(body=ret, content_type='application/json')
+        if (not self.cache or
+            (time.time() - self.cache_time) > self.cache_expiry):
+            try:
+                self.cache = self.scheduler.formatStatusJSON()
+                # Call time.time() again because formatting above may take
+                # longer than the cache timeout.
+                self.cache_time = time.time()
+            except:
+                self.log.exception("Exception formatting status:")
+                raise
+        response = webob.Response(body=self.cache,
+                                  content_type='application/json')
         response.headers['Access-Control-Allow-Origin'] = '*'
         return response