diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/pulseaudio/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/pulseaudio/package.py
index f96d2af990e..bfc93dab7d4 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/pulseaudio/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/pulseaudio/package.py
@@ -51,6 +51,7 @@ class Pulseaudio(AutotoolsPackage):
     depends_on("openssl", when="+openssl")
     depends_on("perl-xml-parser", type="build")
     depends_on("speexdsp@1.2:")
+    depends_on("m4", type="build")
 
     def configure_args(self):
         args = [