diff --git a/package/wpa_supplicant/Config.in b/package/wpa_supplicant/Config.in
index 92953f69f0..e385d762e6 100644
--- a/package/wpa_supplicant/Config.in
+++ b/package/wpa_supplicant/Config.in
@@ -175,4 +175,12 @@ config BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_DBUS_INTROSPECTION
 	help
 	  Add introspection support for the DBus control interface.
 
+config BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SMARTCARD
+	bool "Smartcard support"
+	select BR2_PACKAGE_OPENSSL
+	select BR2_PACKAGE_OPENSSL_FORCE_LIBOPENSSL
+	help
+	  Enable the smart card support. Required for OpenSSL engines
+	  to work using PKCS11 and 802.1x
+
 endif
diff --git a/package/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.mk b/package/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.mk
index 44cfed495b..9de536b943 100644
--- a/package/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.mk
+++ b/package/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.mk
@@ -24,9 +24,6 @@ WPA_SUPPLICANT_CONFIG_ENABLE = \
 	CONFIG_INTERNAL_LIBTOMMATH \
 	CONFIG_MATCH_IFACE
 
-WPA_SUPPLICANT_CONFIG_DISABLE = \
-	CONFIG_SMARTCARD
-
 # libnl-3 needs -lm (for rint) and -lpthread if linking statically
 # And library order matters hence stick -lnl-3 first since it's appended
 # in the wpa_supplicant Makefiles as in LIBS+=-lnl-3 ... thus failing
@@ -191,6 +188,12 @@ WPA_SUPPLICANT_DEPENDENCIES += readline
 WPA_SUPPLICANT_CONFIG_ENABLE += CONFIG_READLINE
 endif
 
+ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SMARTCARD),y)
+WPA_SUPPLICANT_CONFIG_ENABLE += CONFIG_SMARTCARD
+else
+WPA_SUPPLICANT_CONFIG_DISABLE += CONFIG_SMARTCARD
+endif
+
 ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_CTRL_IFACE),y)
 define WPA_SUPPLICANT_ENABLE_CTRL_IFACE
 	sed -i '/ctrl_interface/s/^#//g' $(TARGET_DIR)/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf