diff --git a/packages/react-native/Package.swift b/packages/react-native/Package.swift
index 8d69cf6f1de..96d0af7f222 100644
--- a/packages/react-native/Package.swift
+++ b/packages/react-native/Package.swift
@@ -336,7 +336,10 @@ let reactRuntime = RNTarget(
   name: .reactRuntime,
   path: "ReactCommon/react/runtime",
   excludedPaths: ["tests", "iostests", "platform"],
-  dependencies: [.reactNativeDependencies, .jsi, .reactJsiExecutor, .reactCxxReact, .reactJsErrorHandler, .reactPerformanceTimeline, .reactUtils, .reactFeatureFlags, .reactJsInspector, .reactJsiTooling, .reactHermes, .reactRuntimeScheduler, .hermesPrebuilt]
+  dependencies: [.reactNativeDependencies, .jsi, .reactJsiExecutor, .reactCxxReact, .reactJsErrorHandler, .reactPerformanceTimeline, .reactUtils, .reactFeatureFlags, .reactJsInspector, .reactJsiTooling, .reactHermes, .reactRuntimeScheduler, .hermesPrebuilt],
+  defines: [
+    CXXSetting.define("HERMES_ENABLE_DEBUGGER", to: "1", .when(configuration: BuildConfiguration.debug))
+  ]
 )
 
 /// React-runtimeApple.podspec