diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 621b496..66b6cc4 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 # tidyselect (development version)
-  
+
+* `matches()` now uses `perl = TRUE` by default. This makes it more consitent with regular expressions in stringr (#330).
+
 * `eval_select()` and `eval_relocate()` gain a new `error_arg` argument that can be specified to throw a better error message when `allow_empty = FALSE`  or `allow_rename = FALSE` (@olivroy, #327).
 
 * `vars_pull()` now also warns when using `.data` (#335). Please
diff --git a/R/helpers-pattern.R b/R/helpers-pattern.R
index 8ce0c26..dfcfb2f 100644
--- a/R/helpers-pattern.R
+++ b/R/helpers-pattern.R
@@ -144,7 +144,7 @@ contains <- function(match,
 #' @export
 matches <- function(match,
                     ignore.case = TRUE,
-                    perl = FALSE,
+                    perl = TRUE,
                     vars = NULL) {
   check_match(match)
   vars <- vars %||% peek_vars(fn = "matches")
diff --git a/man/starts_with.Rd b/man/starts_with.Rd
index 1dab344..2d8f751 100644
--- a/man/starts_with.Rd
+++ b/man/starts_with.Rd
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ ends_with(match, ignore.case = TRUE, vars = NULL)
 
 contains(match, ignore.case = TRUE, vars = NULL)
 
-matches(match, ignore.case = TRUE, perl = FALSE, vars = NULL)
+matches(match, ignore.case = TRUE, perl = TRUE, vars = NULL)
 
 num_range(
   prefix,