diff --git a/cli/src/common.ts b/cli/src/common.ts
index 9487d22029..83d3b5d9e0 100644
--- a/cli/src/common.ts
+++ b/cli/src/common.ts
@@ -369,7 +369,10 @@ export function getNpmClient(config: Config, npmClient: string): Promise<string>
 
 export async function copyTemplate(src: string, dst: string) {
   await copyAsync(src, dst);
+  await renameGitignore(dst);
+}
 
+export async function renameGitignore(dst: string) {
   // npm renames .gitignore to something else, so our templates
   // have .gitignore as gitignore, we need to rename it here.
   const gitignorePath = join(dst, 'gitignore');
diff --git a/cli/src/tasks/new-plugin.ts b/cli/src/tasks/new-plugin.ts
index 6f9a22e4c2..7c0629ae6f 100644
--- a/cli/src/tasks/new-plugin.ts
+++ b/cli/src/tasks/new-plugin.ts
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import { Config } from '../config';
-import { log, logFatal, logInfo, logWarn, runCommand, runTask, writePrettyJSON } from '../common';
+import { log, logFatal, logInfo, logWarn, renameGitignore, runCommand, runTask, writePrettyJSON } from '../common';
 import { OS } from '../definitions';
 import { emoji } from '../util/emoji';
 import { existsAsync, mkdirAsync, readFileAsync, writeFileAsync } from '../util/fs';
@@ -107,6 +107,7 @@ export async function newPlugin(config: Config) {
 
     await runTask('Adding plugin files', async () => {
       await copy(config.plugins.assets.templateDir, pluginPath);
+      await renameGitignore(pluginPath);
       await createTSPlugin(config, pluginPath, domain, className, answers);
       await createIosPlugin(config, pluginPath, domain, className, answers);
       await createAndroidPlugin(config, pluginPath, domain, className);
diff --git a/plugin-template/.gitignore b/plugin-template/gitignore
similarity index 87%
rename from plugin-template/.gitignore
rename to plugin-template/gitignore
index f629a7a461..cad8757084 100644
--- a/plugin-template/.gitignore
+++ b/plugin-template/gitignore
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+# NPM renames .gitignore to .npmignore
+# In order to prevent that, we remove the initial "."
+# And the CLI then renames it
+
 # node files
 dist/
 node_modules/