diff --git a/package/xz/xz.mk b/package/xz/xz.mk
index 9fb93ff4d6..3329d302ef 100644
--- a/package/xz/xz.mk
+++ b/package/xz/xz.mk
@@ -68,5 +68,14 @@ HOST_XZ_CONF_ENV = \
 	CC="$(HOSTCC_NOCCACHE)" \
 	CXX="$(HOSTCXX_NOCCACHE)"
 
+# We need to prevent XZ_AUTORECONF for host builds or we end up with a
+# circular dependency. Since the autoconf build needs to extract a
+# tar.xz archive, autoconf has an implicit dependency on HOST_XZ. By
+# enabling XZ_AUTORECONF we also make host-xz depend on autoconf,
+# which we can't do. It is also not necessary as we're autoreconfuring
+# the target package to fix static build with musl, which is
+# irrelevant for the host package.
+HOST_XZ_AUTORECONF = NO
+
 $(eval $(autotools-package))
 $(eval $(host-autotools-package))