diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.2.0.rst b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.2.0.rst
index f751a91cecf19..fea647b919e30 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.2.0.rst
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.2.0.rst
@@ -410,6 +410,7 @@ Timedelta
 - Bug in :class:`TimedeltaIndex`, :class:`Series`, and :class:`DataFrame` floor-division with ``timedelta64`` dtypes and ``NaT`` in the denominator (:issue:`35529`)
 - Bug in parsing of ISO 8601 durations in :class:`Timedelta`, :meth:`pd.to_datetime` (:issue:`37159`, fixes :issue:`29773` and :issue:`36204`)
 - Bug in :func:`to_timedelta` with a read-only array incorrectly raising (:issue:`34857`)
+- Bug in :class:`Timedelta` incorrectly truncating to sub-second portion of a string input when it has precision higher than nanoseconds (:issue:`36738`)
 
 Timezones
 ^^^^^^^^^
diff --git a/pandas/_libs/tslibs/timedeltas.pyx b/pandas/_libs/tslibs/timedeltas.pyx
index 29e8c58055f9e..e4b19d844dcab 100644
--- a/pandas/_libs/tslibs/timedeltas.pyx
+++ b/pandas/_libs/tslibs/timedeltas.pyx
@@ -405,9 +405,11 @@ cdef inline int64_t parse_timedelta_string(str ts) except? -1:
             m = 10**(3 -len(frac)) * 1000 * 1000
         elif len(frac) > 3 and len(frac) <= 6:
             m = 10**(6 -len(frac)) * 1000
-        else:
+        elif len(frac) > 6 and len(frac) <= 9:
             m = 10**(9 -len(frac))
-
+        else:
+            m = 1
+            frac = frac[:9]
         r = <int64_t>int(''.join(frac)) * m
         result += timedelta_as_neg(r, neg)
 
@@ -1143,6 +1145,9 @@ class Timedelta(_Timedelta):
     Notes
     -----
     The ``.value`` attribute is always in ns.
+
+    If the precision is higher than nanoseconds, the precision of the duration is
+    truncated to nanoseconds.
     """
 
     def __new__(cls, object value=_no_input, unit=None, **kwargs):
diff --git a/pandas/core/tools/timedeltas.py b/pandas/core/tools/timedeltas.py
index e8faebd6b2542..6a9fd7a542a44 100644
--- a/pandas/core/tools/timedeltas.py
+++ b/pandas/core/tools/timedeltas.py
@@ -66,6 +66,11 @@ def to_timedelta(arg, unit=None, errors="raise"):
     to_datetime : Convert argument to datetime.
     convert_dtypes : Convert dtypes.
 
+    Notes
+    -----
+    If the precision is higher than nanoseconds, the precision of the duration is
+    truncated to nanoseconds for string inputs.
+
     Examples
     --------
     Parsing a single string to a Timedelta:
diff --git a/pandas/tests/tools/test_to_timedelta.py b/pandas/tests/tools/test_to_timedelta.py
index 5be7e81df53f2..585ad4a7fab51 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/tools/test_to_timedelta.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/tools/test_to_timedelta.py
@@ -210,3 +210,20 @@ def test_to_timedelta_nullable_int64_dtype(self):
         result = to_timedelta(Series([1, None], dtype="Int64"), unit="days")
 
         tm.assert_series_equal(result, expected)
+
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize(
+        ("input", "expected"),
+        [
+            ("8:53:08.71800000001", "8:53:08.718"),
+            ("8:53:08.718001", "8:53:08.718001"),
+            ("8:53:08.7180000001", "8:53:08.7180000001"),
+            ("-8:53:08.71800000001", "-8:53:08.718"),
+            ("8:53:08.7180000089", "8:53:08.718000008"),
+        ],
+    )
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize("func", [pd.Timedelta, pd.to_timedelta])
+    def test_to_timedelta_precision_over_nanos(self, input, expected, func):
+        # GH: 36738
+        expected = pd.Timedelta(expected)
+        result = func(input)
+        assert result == expected