diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 38b27b00fdc4..7222877dbff6 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@ This release is compatible with NumPy 2.5.
 * Avoided a copy of `dpnp.einsum` result into C-order by building the product in the requested layout directly [#3069](https://github.com/IntelPython/dpnp/pull/3069)
 * Updated the implementation of `dpnp.putmask` by adding dedicated contiguous and strided SYCL kernels [#3014](https://github.com/IntelPython/dpnp/pull/3014)
 * Changed `dpnp.sort`, `dpnp.argsort`, and their `dpnp.ndarray`/`dpnp.tensor` counterparts to place `NaN` values last instead of first when sorting in descending order [#3066](https://github.com/IntelPython/dpnp/pull/3066)
+* Documented and made explicit support for `copy=None` ("copy only if needed") in `dpnp.nan_to_num` [#3083](https://github.com/IntelPython/dpnp/pull/3083)
 
 ### Deprecated
 
diff --git a/dpnp/dpnp_iface_mathematical.py b/dpnp/dpnp_iface_mathematical.py
index 7b7ffba9dbfa..6a08300e0850 100644
--- a/dpnp/dpnp_iface_mathematical.py
+++ b/dpnp/dpnp_iface_mathematical.py
@@ -3605,10 +3605,10 @@ def nan_to_num(x, copy=True, nan=0.0, posinf=None, neginf=None):
     ----------
     x : {dpnp.ndarray, usm_ndarray}
         Input data.
-    copy : bool, optional
+    copy : {None, bool}, optional
         Whether to create a copy of `x` (``True``) or to replace values
-        in-place (``False``). The in-place operation only occurs if casting to
-        an array does not require a copy.
+        in-place (``False`` or ``None``). In-place operation requires `x` to
+        be writable; a ``ValueError`` is raised otherwise.
 
         Default: ``True``.
     nan : {scalar, array_like}, optional
@@ -3635,8 +3635,8 @@ def nan_to_num(x, copy=True, nan=0.0, posinf=None, neginf=None):
     Returns
     -------
     out : dpnp.ndarray
-        `x`, with the non-finite values replaced. If `copy` is ``False``, this
-        may be `x` itself.
+        `x`, with the non-finite values replaced. If `copy` is ``False`` or
+        ``None``, this may be `x` itself.
 
     See Also
     --------
@@ -3713,10 +3713,11 @@ def _check_nan_inf(val, val_dt):
 
     if copy:
         out = dpnp.empty_like(x)
-    else:
-        if not x.flags.writable:
-            raise ValueError("copy is required for read-only array `x`")
+    elif x.flags.writable:
+        # copy=False or None (copy-if-needed): replace values in-place
         out = x
+    else:
+        raise ValueError("copy is required for read-only array `x`")
 
     # handle a special case when nan and infs are all scalars
     if all(dpnp.isscalar(el) for el in (nan, max_f, min_f)):
diff --git a/dpnp/tests/test_mathematical.py b/dpnp/tests/test_mathematical.py
index ff74cfbfdb38..b25cb2d84ce1 100644
--- a/dpnp/tests/test_mathematical.py
+++ b/dpnp/tests/test_mathematical.py
@@ -1491,13 +1491,25 @@ def test_numpy_input_array(self):
             dpnp.nan_to_num(a)
 
     @pytest.mark.parametrize("xp", [dpnp, numpy])
-    def test_error_readonly(self, xp):
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize("copy", [False, None])
+    def test_error_readonly(self, xp, copy):
         a = xp.array([0, 1, xp.nan, xp.inf, -xp.inf])
         a.flags["W"] = False
         with pytest.raises(ValueError, match="read-only"):
-            xp.nan_to_num(a, copy=False)
+            xp.nan_to_num(a, copy=copy)
 
-    @pytest.mark.parametrize("copy", [True, False])
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize("copy", [False, None])
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize("dt", get_float_complex_dtypes())
+    def test_copy_in_place(self, copy, dt):
+        a = numpy.array([0, 1, numpy.nan, numpy.inf, -numpy.inf], dtype=dt)
+        ia = dpnp.array(a)
+
+        result = dpnp.nan_to_num(ia, copy=copy)
+        expected = numpy.nan_to_num(a, copy=copy)
+        assert result is ia
+        assert_allclose(result, expected)
+
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize("copy", [True, False, None])
     @pytest.mark.parametrize("dt", get_all_dtypes(no_bool=True, no_none=True))
     def test_strided(self, copy, dt):
         n = 10