diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/cdhit/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/cdhit/package.py
index c09e61cd73b..f2c1d78b6f5 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/cdhit/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/cdhit/package.py
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ class Cdhit(MakefilePackage):
     homepage = "http://cd-hit.org/"
     url      = "https://github.com/weizhongli/cdhit/archive/V4.6.8.tar.gz"
 
+    version('4.8.1', sha256='f8bc3cdd7aebb432fcd35eed0093e7a6413f1e36bbd2a837ebc06e57cdb20b70')
     version('4.6.8', 'bdd73ec0cceab6653aab7b31b57c5a8b')
 
     variant('openmp', default=True, description='Compile with multi-threading support')