diff --git a/django/db/migrations/writer.py b/django/db/migrations/writer.py
index ac5da0953b..82396c1033 100644
--- a/django/db/migrations/writer.py
+++ b/django/db/migrations/writer.py
@@ -351,7 +351,10 @@ class MigrationWriter(object):
                     return string, set(imports)
             if hasattr(value, "__module__"):
                 module = value.__module__
-                return "%s.%s" % (module, value.__name__), set(["import %s" % module])
+                if module == six.moves.builtins.__name__:
+                    return value.__name__, set()
+                else:
+                    return "%s.%s" % (module, value.__name__), set(["import %s" % module])
         # Other iterables
         elif isinstance(value, collections.Iterable):
             imports = set()
diff --git a/docs/releases/1.7.1.txt b/docs/releases/1.7.1.txt
index a1149d37cd..2c8af6ac7e 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.7.1.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/1.7.1.txt
@@ -83,3 +83,6 @@ Bugfixes
 * Coerced the ``related_name`` model field option to unicode during migration
   generation to generate migrations that work with both Python 2 and 3
   (:ticket:`23455`).
+
+* Fixed ``MigrationWriter`` to handle builtin types without imports
+  (:ticket:`23560`).
diff --git a/tests/migrations/test_writer.py b/tests/migrations/test_writer.py
index 9a04df0553..2b7ceddb2d 100644
--- a/tests/migrations/test_writer.py
+++ b/tests/migrations/test_writer.py
@@ -81,6 +81,11 @@ class WriterTests(TestCase):
         self.assertSerializedEqual(set([2, 3, "eighty"]))
         self.assertSerializedEqual({"lalalala": ["yeah", "no", "maybe"]})
         self.assertSerializedEqual(_('Hello'))
+        # Builtins
+        self.assertSerializedEqual([list, tuple, dict, set])
+        string, imports = MigrationWriter.serialize([list, tuple, dict, set])
+        self.assertEqual(string, "[list, tuple, dict, set]")
+        self.assertEqual(imports, set())
         # Functions
         with six.assertRaisesRegex(self, ValueError, 'Cannot serialize function: lambda'):
             self.assertSerializedEqual(lambda x: 42)