diff --git a/pkgs/applications/virtualization/qemu/utils.nix b/pkgs/applications/virtualization/qemu/utils.nix
index d9a88bf545b3..f4acf9a534c9 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/virtualization/qemu/utils.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/virtualization/qemu/utils.nix
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{ stdenv, installShellFiles, qemu }:
+{ stdenv, installShellFiles, qemu, removeReferencesTo }:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   pname = "qemu-utils";
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     cp "${qemu}/bin/qemu-img" "$out/bin/qemu-img"
     cp "${qemu}/bin/qemu-io"  "$out/bin/qemu-io"
     cp "${qemu}/bin/qemu-nbd" "$out/bin/qemu-nbd"
+    ${removeReferencesTo}/bin/remove-references-to -t ${qemu} $out/bin/*
 
     installManPage ${qemu}/share/man/man1/qemu-img.1.gz
     installManPage ${qemu}/share/man/man8/qemu-nbd.8.gz