The disclosure provides for reducing uplink control channel overhead at a user equipment (UE). The UE may determine that a total transmit power of the UE exceeds an allocated power. The UE may then scale a transmit power of a high-speed dedicated physical control channel (HS-DPCCH) relative to a dedicated physical control channel (DPCCH) in response to the determination that the UE is power limited. The UE may scale the transmit power of the HS-DPCCH when there is no downlink activity as determined, for example, by expiration of a timer. In an aspect, the UE may transmit an indication that the UE is power limited, for example, by using a most-significant bit of a transport format combination index. In another aspect, the UE may receive an indication that a downlink transmission is imminent and, in response, the UE may transmit the HS-DPCCH without scaling its corresponding transmit power.