diff --git a/.changelog/13118.txt b/.changelog/13118.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..c2119f9fbc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changelog/13118.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+```release-note:bug
+config: fix backwards compatibility bug where setting the (deprecated) top-level `verify_incoming` option would enable TLS client authentication on the gRPC port
+```
diff --git a/agent/config/builder.go b/agent/config/builder.go
index 76b41b113b..9a814bcb5c 100644
--- a/agent/config/builder.go
+++ b/agent/config/builder.go
@@ -2522,7 +2522,7 @@ func (b *builder) buildTLSConfig(rt RuntimeConfig, t TLS) (tlsutil.Config, error
 
 	// TLS is only enabled on the gRPC listener if there's an HTTPS port configured
 	// for historic and backwards-compatibility reasons.
-	if rt.HTTPSPort <= 0 && (t.GRPC != TLSProtocolConfig{}) {
+	if rt.HTTPSPort <= 0 && (t.GRPC != TLSProtocolConfig{} && t.GRPCModifiedByDeprecatedConfig == nil) {
 		b.warn("tls.grpc was provided but TLS will NOT be enabled on the gRPC listener without an HTTPS listener configured (e.g. via ports.https)")
 	}
 
diff --git a/agent/config/config.go b/agent/config/config.go
index affcef6010..d78e7098dd 100644
--- a/agent/config/config.go
+++ b/agent/config/config.go
@@ -870,4 +870,17 @@ type TLS struct {
 	InternalRPC TLSProtocolConfig `mapstructure:"internal_rpc"`
 	HTTPS       TLSProtocolConfig `mapstructure:"https"`
 	GRPC        TLSProtocolConfig `mapstructure:"grpc"`
+
+	// GRPCModifiedByDeprecatedConfig is a flag used to indicate that GRPC was
+	// modified by the deprecated field mapping (as apposed to a user-provided
+	// a grpc stanza). This prevents us from emitting a warning about an
+	// ineffectual grpc stanza when we modify GRPC to honor the legacy behaviour
+	// that setting `verify_incoming = true` at the top-level *does not* enable
+	// client certificate verification on the gRPC port.
+	//
+	// See: applyDeprecatedTLSConfig.
+	//
+	// Note: we use a *struct{} here because a simple bool isn't supported by our
+	// config merging logic.
+	GRPCModifiedByDeprecatedConfig *struct{} `mapstructure:"-"`
 }
diff --git a/agent/config/deprecated.go b/agent/config/deprecated.go
index b27150b518..ab43657086 100644
--- a/agent/config/deprecated.go
+++ b/agent/config/deprecated.go
@@ -180,9 +180,11 @@ func applyDeprecatedConfig(d *decodeTarget) (Config, []string) {
 func applyDeprecatedTLSConfig(dep DeprecatedConfig, cfg *Config) []string {
 	var warns []string
 
-	defaults := &cfg.TLS.Defaults
-	internalRPC := &cfg.TLS.InternalRPC
-	https := &cfg.TLS.HTTPS
+	tls := &cfg.TLS
+	defaults := &tls.Defaults
+	internalRPC := &tls.InternalRPC
+	https := &tls.HTTPS
+	grpc := &tls.GRPC
 
 	if v := dep.CAFile; v != nil {
 		if defaults.CAFile == nil {
@@ -239,6 +241,16 @@ func applyDeprecatedTLSConfig(dep DeprecatedConfig, cfg *Config) []string {
 		if defaults.VerifyIncoming == nil {
 			defaults.VerifyIncoming = v
 		}
+
+		// Prior to Consul 1.12 it was not possible to enable client certificate
+		// verification on the gRPC port. We must override GRPC.VerifyIncoming to
+		// prevent it from inheriting Defaults.VerifyIncoming when we've mapped the
+		// deprecated top-level verify_incoming field.
+		if grpc.VerifyIncoming == nil {
+			grpc.VerifyIncoming = pBool(false)
+			tls.GRPCModifiedByDeprecatedConfig = &struct{}{}
+		}
+
 		warns = append(warns, deprecationWarning("verify_incoming", "tls.defaults.verify_incoming"))
 	}
 
diff --git a/agent/config/deprecated_test.go b/agent/config/deprecated_test.go
index 36dd869077..d3febea2b8 100644
--- a/agent/config/deprecated_test.go
+++ b/agent/config/deprecated_test.go
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ tls_prefer_server_cipher_suites = true
 
 	require.False(t, rt.TLS.InternalRPC.VerifyIncoming)
 	require.False(t, rt.TLS.HTTPS.VerifyIncoming)
-	require.True(t, rt.TLS.GRPC.VerifyIncoming)
+	require.False(t, rt.TLS.GRPC.VerifyIncoming)
 	require.True(t, rt.TLS.InternalRPC.VerifyOutgoing)
 	require.True(t, rt.TLS.HTTPS.VerifyOutgoing)
 	require.True(t, rt.TLS.InternalRPC.VerifyServerHostname)