diff --git a/src/qemu/qemu_domain.c b/src/qemu/qemu_domain.c
index d6fded9dd1..6781fb6cf0 100644
--- a/src/qemu/qemu_domain.c
+++ b/src/qemu/qemu_domain.c
@@ -5360,10 +5360,9 @@ qemuDomainNVDimmAlignSizePseries(virDomainMemoryDefPtr mem)
     unsigned long long ppc64AlignSize =  256 * 1024;
     unsigned long long guestArea = mem->size - mem->labelsize;
 
-    /* Align down guest_area. 256MiB is the minimum size. Error
-     * out if target_size is smaller than 256MiB + label_size,
-     * since aligning it up will cause QEMU errors. */
-    if (mem->size < (ppc64AlignSize + mem->labelsize)) {
+    /* Align down guestArea. We can't align down if guestArea is
+     * smaller than the 256MiB alignment. */
+    if (guestArea < ppc64AlignSize) {
         virReportError(VIR_ERR_XML_ERROR, "%s",
                        _("minimum target size for the NVDIMM "
                          "must be 256MB plus the label size"));