diff --git a/packages/playwright-test/src/runner/loadUtils.ts b/packages/playwright-test/src/runner/loadUtils.ts
index 62ef1877e0..a940b89d71 100644
--- a/packages/playwright-test/src/runner/loadUtils.ts
+++ b/packages/playwright-test/src/runner/loadUtils.ts
@@ -144,6 +144,18 @@ export async function createRootSuite(testRun: TestRun, errors: TestError[], sho
     }
   }
 
+  if (shouldFilterOnly) {
+    // Create a fake root to execute the exclusive semantics across the projects.
+    const filteredRoot = new Suite('', 'root');
+    for (const filteredProjectSuite of filteredProjectSuites.values())
+      filteredRoot._addSuite(filteredProjectSuite);
+    filterOnly(filteredRoot);
+    for (const [project, filteredProjectSuite] of filteredProjectSuites) {
+      if (!filteredRoot.suites.includes(filteredProjectSuite))
+        filteredProjectSuites.delete(project);
+    }
+  }
+
   // Add post-filtered top-level projects to the root suite for sharding and 'only' processing.
   const projectClosure = buildProjectsClosure([...filteredProjectSuites.keys()], project => filteredProjectSuites.get(project)!._hasTests());
   for (const [project, type] of projectClosure) {
@@ -162,10 +174,6 @@ export async function createRootSuite(testRun: TestRun, errors: TestError[], sho
     }
   }
 
-  // Filter only for top-level projects.
-  if (shouldFilterOnly)
-    filterOnly(rootSuite);
-
   // Shard only the top-level projects.
   if (config.config.shard) {
     // Create test groups for top-level projects.
diff --git a/tests/playwright-test/deps.spec.ts b/tests/playwright-test/deps.spec.ts
index ece6d476eb..4e97cb4d09 100644
--- a/tests/playwright-test/deps.spec.ts
+++ b/tests/playwright-test/deps.spec.ts
@@ -210,7 +210,7 @@ test('should not filter dependency by file name', async ({ runInlineTest }) => {
   expect(result.output).toContain('1) [A] › one.spec.ts:3:11 › fails');
 });
 
-test('should not filter dependency by only', async ({ runInlineTest }) => {
+test('should filter dependency by only', async ({ runInlineTest }) => {
   const result = await runInlineTest({
     'playwright.config.ts': `
       module.exports = { projects: [
@@ -235,7 +235,7 @@ test('should not filter dependency by only', async ({ runInlineTest }) => {
     `,
   });
   expect(result.exitCode).toBe(0);
-  expect(result.outputLines).toEqual(['setup in setup', 'setup 2 in setup', 'test in browser']);
+  expect(result.outputLines).toEqual(['setup 2 in setup']);
 });
 
 test('should filter dependency by only when running explicitly', async ({ runInlineTest }) => {