diff --git a/docs/backend/OPENVINO.md b/docs/backend/OPENVINO.md
index eae728754514..54ef79ccecd2 100644
--- a/docs/backend/OPENVINO.md
+++ b/docs/backend/OPENVINO.md
@@ -713,6 +713,7 @@ Boolean flags follow a uniform convention: set to a **positive integer** (e.g. `
 | `GGML_OPENVINO_CACHE_DIR`         | String    | `not set`  | Directory for OpenVINO model caching (recommended: `/tmp/ov_cache`). Enables model caching when set. **Not supported on NPU devices.** |
 | `GGML_OPENVINO_COMPILED_MODEL_CACHE_DIR` | String | `not set` | Directory for the frontend compiled-model cache. When set, OpenVINO compiled models are exported as blobs and imported on later runs to skip weight requantization, graph conversion, and compilation for matching single-graph models. |
 | `GGML_OPENVINO_PREFILL_CHUNK_SIZE`| Integer   | `256`      | Token chunk size for **NPU** prefill (NPU-only; ignored on CPU/GPU). Must be a positive integer; otherwise the default is used. |
+| `GGML_OPENVINO_NPU_COMPILE_CONFIG` | String | `not set` | NPU-only compiler mode parameters forwarded to OpenVINO as `NPU_COMPILATION_MODE_PARAMS`, for example `optimization-level=3`. |
 | `GGML_OPENVINO_STATEFUL_EXECUTION`| Boolean   | `0`        | Enable stateful KV cache for better performance. Recommended on CPU, GPU.                                   |
 | `GGML_OPENVINO_DISABLE_CACHE`     | Boolean   | `0`        | Disable the in-process compiled-model / decoder cache (cache is on by default). Set to `1` to disable.      |
 | `GGML_OPENVINO_DISABLE_KV_SLICE`  | Boolean   | `0`        | Disable the KV-cache input-tensor slicing optimization (slicing is on by default on CPU/GPU). Set to `1` to disable. |
diff --git a/ggml/src/ggml-openvino/ggml-openvino-extra.cpp b/ggml/src/ggml-openvino/ggml-openvino-extra.cpp
index 47ed51bf670b..36dfa4d9471b 100644
--- a/ggml/src/ggml-openvino/ggml-openvino-extra.cpp
+++ b/ggml/src/ggml-openvino/ggml-openvino-extra.cpp
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ void ggml_openvino_device_config::init() {
         "GGML_OPENVINO_CACHE_DIR",
         "GGML_OPENVINO_DEBUG_NODE",
         "GGML_OPENVINO_COMPILED_MODEL_CACHE_DIR",
+        "GGML_OPENVINO_NPU_COMPILE_CONFIG",
         // Integer values (use ggml_openvino_getenv_int)
         "GGML_OPENVINO_PREFILL_CHUNK_SIZE",
         // Boolean toggles (treated as int flags via ggml_openvino_getenv_int)
@@ -89,6 +90,11 @@ void ggml_openvino_device_config::init() {
             compile_config["NPUW_CACHE_DIR"] = cache_dir;
             compile_config.insert(ov::cache_mode(ov::CacheMode::OPTIMIZE_SIZE));
         }
+        const char * compilation_mode_params =
+            ggml_openvino_getenv_str("GGML_OPENVINO_NPU_COMPILE_CONFIG");
+        if (compilation_mode_params && strlen(compilation_mode_params) > 0) {
+            compile_config["NPU_COMPILATION_MODE_PARAMS"] = compilation_mode_params;
+        }
     } else if (cache_dir && strlen(cache_dir) > 0) {
         compile_config.insert(ov::cache_dir(cache_dir));
         compile_config.insert(ov::cache_mode(ov::CacheMode::OPTIMIZE_SIZE));