diff --git a/lib/HTMLParser.js b/lib/HTMLParser.js
index ef40ee6..189108b 100644
--- a/lib/HTMLParser.js
+++ b/lib/HTMLParser.js
@@ -1973,6 +1973,18 @@ function HTMLParser(address, fragmentContext, options) {
   var templateInsertionModes = []; // Stack of template insertion modes.
   var stack = new HTMLParser.ElementStack(); // Stack of open elements
   var afe = new HTMLParser.ActiveFormattingElements(); // mis-nested tags
+
+  // Reconstructing stale active formatting elements can otherwise turn a
+  // small input into a quadratic number of DOM allocations. Keep the total
+  // reconstruction work linear in the amount of input supplied to this
+  // parser. The floor avoids affecting small documents with ordinary HTML
+  // error recovery, while the per-character allowance scales for large
+  // documents.
+  var input_char_count = 0;
+  var afe_reconstruction_count = 0;
+  var MIN_AFE_RECONSTRUCTION_BUDGET = 4096;
+  var AFE_RECONSTRUCTIONS_PER_INPUT_CHAR = 2;
+
   var fragment = (fragmentContext!==undefined); // For innerHTML, etc.
   var head_element_pointer = null;
   var form_element_pointer = null;
@@ -2040,6 +2052,11 @@ function HTMLParser(address, fragmentContext, options) {
     parse: function(s, end, shouldPauseFunc) {
       var moreToDo;
 
+      // Count only newly supplied input. Buffered leftovers are already
+      // accounted for, while process() and resume() re-enter with an empty
+      // string and therefore do not count the same input twice.
+      input_char_count += s.length;
+
       // If we're paused, remember the text to parse, but
       // don't parse it now.
       // (Don't invoke shouldPauseFunc because we haven't handled 'end' yet.)
@@ -2850,6 +2867,15 @@ function HTMLParser(address, fragmentContext, options) {
     // one, recreating formatting elements and pushing them back onto
     // the list of open elements
     for(i = i+1; i < afe.list.length; i++) {
+      afe_reconstruction_count++;
+      var reconstruction_budget = Math.max(
+        MIN_AFE_RECONSTRUCTION_BUDGET,
+        input_char_count * AFE_RECONSTRUCTIONS_PER_INPUT_CHAR
+      );
+      if (afe_reconstruction_count > reconstruction_budget) {
+        throw new Error('HTML parser active formatting reconstruction limit exceeded');
+      }
+
       var newelt = insertElement(function(doc) { return afeclone(doc, i).elt; });
       afe.list[i] = newelt;
     }
diff --git a/test/parsing.js b/test/parsing.js
index 167efd4..d46345c 100644
--- a/test/parsing.js
+++ b/test/parsing.js
@@ -260,3 +260,34 @@ exports.parseAlgorithm.activeFormattingElements = {
     }
   }
 };
+
+
+exports.parseAlgorithm['active formatting reconstruction budget'] = {
+  'bounds pathological fragment reconstruction': function() {
+    var doc = domino.createDocument();
+    var template = doc.createElement('template');
+    var html = '';
+
+    for (var i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
+      html += '<p><b a' + i + '></p>';
+    }
+
+    assert.throws(function() {
+      template.innerHTML = html;
+    }, /active formatting reconstruction limit exceeded/);
+  },
+
+  'allows normally nested formatting elements': function() {
+    var doc = domino.createDocument();
+    var template = doc.createElement('template');
+    var html = '';
+
+    for (var i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
+      html += '<p><b a' + i + '></b></p>';
+    }
+
+    assert.doesNotThrow(function() {
+      template.innerHTML = html;
+    });
+  }
+};