diff --git a/drivers/vfio/vfio_iommu_type1.c b/drivers/vfio/vfio_iommu_type1.c
index 96fddc1dafc3..c9c10708a40f 100644
--- a/drivers/vfio/vfio_iommu_type1.c
+++ b/drivers/vfio/vfio_iommu_type1.c
@@ -294,31 +294,13 @@ static int vfio_lock_acct(struct vfio_dma *dma, long npage, bool async)
  * Some mappings aren't backed by a struct page, for example an mmap'd
  * MMIO range for our own or another device.  These use a different
  * pfn conversion and shouldn't be tracked as locked pages.
+ * For compound pages, any driver that sets the reserved bit in head
+ * page needs to set the reserved bit in all subpages to be safe.
  */
 static bool is_invalid_reserved_pfn(unsigned long pfn)
 {
-	if (pfn_valid(pfn)) {
-		bool reserved;
-		struct page *tail = pfn_to_page(pfn);
-		struct page *head = compound_head(tail);
-		reserved = !!(PageReserved(head));
-		if (head != tail) {
-			/*
-			 * "head" is not a dangling pointer
-			 * (compound_head takes care of that)
-			 * but the hugepage may have been split
-			 * from under us (and we may not hold a
-			 * reference count on the head page so it can
-			 * be reused before we run PageReferenced), so
-			 * we've to check PageTail before returning
-			 * what we just read.
-			 */
-			smp_rmb();
-			if (PageTail(tail))
-				return reserved;
-		}
-		return PageReserved(tail);
-	}
+	if (pfn_valid(pfn))
+		return PageReserved(pfn_to_page(pfn));
 
 	return true;
 }