diff --git a/pandas/conftest.py b/pandas/conftest.py
index 97cc514e31bb3..8d3c9d4dac400 100644
--- a/pandas/conftest.py
+++ b/pandas/conftest.py
@@ -1181,7 +1181,13 @@ def ip():
     pytest.importorskip("IPython", minversion="6.0.0")
     from IPython.core.interactiveshell import InteractiveShell
 
-    return InteractiveShell()
+    # GH#35711 make sure sqlite history file handle is not leaked
+    from traitlets.config import Config
+
+    c = Config()
+    c.HistoryManager.hist_file = ":memory:"
+
+    return InteractiveShell(config=c)
 
 
 @pytest.fixture(params=["bsr", "coo", "csc", "csr", "dia", "dok", "lil"])
diff --git a/pandas/tests/io/conftest.py b/pandas/tests/io/conftest.py
index fcee25c258efa..39b9a1cd4fa28 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/io/conftest.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/io/conftest.py
@@ -2,11 +2,22 @@
 
 import pytest
 
+import pandas.util._test_decorators as td
+
 import pandas._testing as tm
 
 from pandas.io.parsers import read_csv
 
 
+@pytest.fixture(autouse=True)
+def check_file_leaks():
+    """
+    Check that a test does not leak file handles.
+    """
+    with td.file_leak_context():
+        yield
+
+
 @pytest.fixture
 def tips_file(datapath):
     """Path to the tips dataset"""
diff --git a/pandas/tests/io/excel/test_readers.py b/pandas/tests/io/excel/test_readers.py
index 51fbbf836a03f..49415a7e0a126 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/io/excel/test_readers.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/io/excel/test_readers.py
@@ -650,7 +650,6 @@ def test_read_from_pathlib_path(self, read_ext):
         tm.assert_frame_equal(expected, actual)
 
     @td.skip_if_no("py.path")
-    @td.check_file_leaks
     def test_read_from_py_localpath(self, read_ext):
 
         # GH12655
@@ -664,7 +663,6 @@ def test_read_from_py_localpath(self, read_ext):
 
         tm.assert_frame_equal(expected, actual)
 
-    @td.check_file_leaks
     def test_close_from_py_localpath(self, read_ext):
 
         # GH31467