diff --git a/mercurial/configitems.py b/mercurial/configitems.py
--- a/mercurial/configitems.py
+++ b/mercurial/configitems.py
@@ -350,6 +350,9 @@ coreconfigitem('profiling', 'sort',
 coreconfigitem('profiling', 'statformat',
     default='hotpath',
 )
+coreconfigitem('profiling', 'type',
+    default='stat',
+)
 coreconfigitem('progress', 'assume-tty',
     default=False,
 )
diff --git a/mercurial/profiling.py b/mercurial/profiling.py
--- a/mercurial/profiling.py
+++ b/mercurial/profiling.py
@@ -183,7 +183,7 @@ class profile(object):
         profiler = encoding.environ.get('HGPROF')
         proffn = None
         if profiler is None:
-            profiler = self._ui.config('profiling', 'type', default='stat')
+            profiler = self._ui.config('profiling', 'type')
         if profiler not in ('ls', 'stat', 'flame'):
             # try load profiler from extension with the same name
             proffn = _loadprofiler(self._ui, profiler)