diff --git a/modules/admin/lib/Controller/Federation.php b/modules/admin/lib/Controller/Federation.php
index 2604ee97306ef7fe2b5633b71ebef5169c6cc4a0..e8e7b5d6fead96f569a4eb2c5abe1c13411c8a10 100644
--- a/modules/admin/lib/Controller/Federation.php
+++ b/modules/admin/lib/Controller/Federation.php
@@ -441,6 +441,13 @@ class Federation
                          */
                         unset($entityMetadata['entityDescriptor']);
 
+                        /**
+                         * Remove any expire from the metadata. This is not so useful
+                         * for manually converted metadata and frequently gives rise
+                         * to unexpected results when copy-pased statically.
+                         */
+                        unset($entityMetadata['expire']);
+
                         $text .= '$metadata[' . var_export($entityId, true) . '] = '
                             . VarExporter::export($entityMetadata) . ";\n";
                     }