diff --git a/srcpkgs/m17n-db/template b/srcpkgs/m17n-db/template
index 8565dfd0a0a..84272545101 100644
--- a/srcpkgs/m17n-db/template
+++ b/srcpkgs/m17n-db/template
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ revision=1
 _glibc_version=2.26
 build_style=gnu-configure
 configure_args="--with-charmaps=${XBPS_BUILDDIR}/glibc-${_glibc_version}/localedata/charmaps"
+hostmakedepends="gettext"
 short_desc="Multilingual text processing library (database)"
 maintainer="newbluemoon <blaumolch@mailbox.org>"
 license="LGPL-2.1"