diff --git a/boot/xilinx-prebuilt/Config.in b/boot/xilinx-prebuilt/Config.in
index a1e711e6cf..7926b6cb9e 100644
--- a/boot/xilinx-prebuilt/Config.in
+++ b/boot/xilinx-prebuilt/Config.in
@@ -68,9 +68,9 @@ config BR2_TARGET_XILINX_PREBUILT_VERSAL_XSA_LOCATION
 	  file. This URL can use any protocol recognized by Buildroot,
 	  like http://, ftp://, file:// or scp://.
 
-	  When pointing to a local XSA using file://, you may want to
-	  use a make variable like $(TOPDIR) to reference the root of
-	  the Buildroot tree.
+	  When pointing to a local XSA using file:// or simply the
+	  local path, you may want to use a make variable like
+	  $(TOPDIR) to reference the root of the Buildroot tree.
 
 	  This option applies to either versal or versal2.
 
diff --git a/boot/xilinx-prebuilt/xilinx-prebuilt.mk b/boot/xilinx-prebuilt/xilinx-prebuilt.mk
index 6bd16d663a..7433444924 100644
--- a/boot/xilinx-prebuilt/xilinx-prebuilt.mk
+++ b/boot/xilinx-prebuilt/xilinx-prebuilt.mk
@@ -10,6 +10,9 @@ ifeq ($(BR2_TARGET_XILINX_PREBUILT_VERSAL_XSA),y)
 XILINX_PREBUILT_FILE = $(call qstrip,$(BR2_TARGET_XILINX_PREBUILT_VERSAL_XSA_LOCATION))
 XILINX_PREBUILT_SITE = $(patsubst %/,%,$(dir $(XILINX_PREBUILT_FILE)))
 XILINX_PREBUILT_SOURCE = $(notdir $(XILINX_PREBUILT_FILE))
+ifeq ($(findstring ://,$(XILINX_PREBUILT_FILE)),)
+XILINX_PREBUILT_SITE_METHOD = file
+endif
 define XILINX_PREBUILT_EXTRACT_CMDS
 	$(UNZIP) $(XILINX_PREBUILT_DL_DIR)/$(XILINX_PREBUILT_SOURCE) -d $(@D)
 endef