diff --git a/docs/pages/release_notes.md b/docs/pages/release_notes.md
index d94d0e0f65..7985ac14f4 100644
--- a/docs/pages/release_notes.md
+++ b/docs/pages/release_notes.md
@@ -154,9 +154,10 @@ in the Migration Guide.
 
 #### API Changes
 
-**Internalized classes and interfaces**
+**Internalized classes and interfaces and methods**
 
-The following classes have been marked as @<!-- -->InternalApi before and are now moved into a `internal` package:
+The following classes/methods have been marked as @<!-- -->InternalApi before and are now moved into a `internal`
+package or made package private and are not accessible anymore.
 
 * pmd-core
   * {%jdoc core::cache.internal.AbstractAnalysisCache %} (now package private)
@@ -169,6 +170,7 @@ The following classes have been marked as @<!-- -->InternalApi before and are no
   * {%jdoc core::cache.internal.FileAnalysisCache %}
   * {%jdoc core::cache.internal.NoopAnalysisCache %}
   * {%jdoc core::util.internal.ResourceLoader %}
+  * {%jdoc core::cpd.Tokens#Tokens() %} (the constructor is now package private)
 
 **Removed classes and methods (previously deprecated)**
 
diff --git a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/Tokenizer.java b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/Tokenizer.java
index e1bd1e84e2..5c37848c0c 100644
--- a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/Tokenizer.java
+++ b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/Tokenizer.java
@@ -27,4 +27,10 @@ public interface Tokenizer {
             tokenizer.tokenize(textDocument, tf);
         }
     }
+
+    static Tokens tokenize(Tokenizer tokenizer, TextDocument textDocument) throws IOException {
+        Tokens tokens = new Tokens();
+        tokenize(tokenizer, textDocument, tokens);
+        return tokens;
+    }
 }
diff --git a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/Tokens.java b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/Tokens.java
index 3f314121e5..f87877f95a 100644
--- a/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/Tokens.java
+++ b/pmd-core/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/Tokens.java
@@ -13,7 +13,6 @@ import java.util.Map.Entry;
 import org.checkerframework.checker.nullness.qual.NonNull;
 import org.checkerframework.checker.nullness.qual.Nullable;
 
-import net.sourceforge.pmd.annotation.InternalApi;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ast.TokenMgrError;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.document.FileId;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.document.TextDocument;
@@ -22,7 +21,6 @@ import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.document.TextDocument;
  * Global token collector for CPD. This is populated by lexing all files,
  * after which the match algorithm proceeds.
  */
-@InternalApi
 public class Tokens {
 
     // This stores all the token entries recorded during the run.
@@ -32,12 +30,12 @@ public class Tokens {
     private int curImageId = 1;
 
     /**
-     * Create a new instance, is internal.
+     * Create a new instance.
+     *
+     * @apiNote  Internal API
      */
-    @InternalApi
-    @Deprecated // just to get a warning
-    public Tokens() { // NOPMD: UnnecessaryConstructor - constructor is needed to place the annotations
-        // constructor is needed to place the annotations
+    Tokens() {
+        // constructor is package private
     }
 
     private void add(TokenEntry tokenEntry) {
diff --git a/pmd-java/src/test/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/cpd/JavaTokenizerTest.java b/pmd-java/src/test/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/cpd/JavaTokenizerTest.java
index 17a873fc1c..fd7e56f9f4 100644
--- a/pmd-java/src/test/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/cpd/JavaTokenizerTest.java
+++ b/pmd-java/src/test/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/cpd/JavaTokenizerTest.java
@@ -13,7 +13,6 @@ import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
 
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.cpd.CpdLanguageProperties;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.cpd.Tokenizer;
-import net.sourceforge.pmd.cpd.Tokens;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.cpd.test.CpdTextComparisonTest;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.cpd.test.LanguagePropertyConfig;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ast.TokenMgrError;
@@ -41,12 +40,10 @@ class JavaTokenizerTest extends CpdTextComparisonTest {
     @Test
     void testLexExceptionLocation() {
         Tokenizer tokenizer = newTokenizer(defaultProperties());
-        Tokens tokens = new Tokens();
         TokenMgrError lexException = assertThrows(TokenMgrError.class, () ->
             Tokenizer.tokenize(tokenizer,
                     // note: the source deliberately contains an unbalanced quote, unterminated string literal
-                    TextDocument.readOnlyString("class F {\n    String s=\"abc\";\"\n}\n", FileId.UNKNOWN, getLanguage().getDefaultVersion()),
-                    tokens)
+                    TextDocument.readOnlyString("class F {\n    String s=\"abc\";\"\n}\n", FileId.UNKNOWN, getLanguage().getDefaultVersion()))
         );
         // this shouldn't throw a IllegalArgumentException
         assertThat(lexException.getMessage(), containsString("at line 3, column 1"));
diff --git a/pmd-lang-test/src/main/kotlin/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/test/CpdTextComparisonTest.kt b/pmd-lang-test/src/main/kotlin/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/test/CpdTextComparisonTest.kt
index 5c1b1f1c12..6b53b3ef60 100644
--- a/pmd-lang-test/src/main/kotlin/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/test/CpdTextComparisonTest.kt
+++ b/pmd-lang-test/src/main/kotlin/net/sourceforge/pmd/cpd/test/CpdTextComparisonTest.kt
@@ -5,17 +5,17 @@
 package net.sourceforge.pmd.cpd.test
 
 import io.kotest.assertions.throwables.shouldThrow
-import net.sourceforge.pmd.cpd.*
-import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.Language
+import net.sourceforge.pmd.cpd.CpdCapableLanguage
+import net.sourceforge.pmd.cpd.TokenEntry
+import net.sourceforge.pmd.cpd.Tokenizer
+import net.sourceforge.pmd.cpd.Tokens
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.LanguagePropertyBundle
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.LanguageRegistry
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ast.TokenMgrError
-import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.document.TextDocument
-import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.document.TextFile
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.document.FileId
+import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.document.TextDocument
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.test.BaseTextComparisonTest
 import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils
-import java.util.*
 
 /**
  * CPD test comparing a dump of a file against a saved baseline.
@@ -173,10 +173,7 @@ abstract class CpdTextComparisonTest(
         FileData(fileName = fileName, fileText = text)
 
     fun tokenize(tokenizer: Tokenizer, fileData: FileData): Tokens =
-        Tokens().also { tokens ->
-            val source = sourceCodeOf(fileData)
-            Tokenizer.tokenize(tokenizer, source, tokens)
-        }
+        Tokenizer.tokenize(tokenizer, sourceCodeOf(fileData))
 
     private companion object {
         const val Indent = "    "