diff --git a/pkg/paho-mqtt/Makefile.dep b/pkg/paho-mqtt/Makefile.dep
index 4dd2edbda0..0b8e325fc9 100644
--- a/pkg/paho-mqtt/Makefile.dep
+++ b/pkg/paho-mqtt/Makefile.dep
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+# PAHO does some comparisons against literals that make certain assumptions
+# about the width of integer types which hold only true for 32 bit platforms
+FEATURES_REQUIRED += arch_32bit
+
 USEMODULE += ztimer
 USEMODULE += ztimer_msec
 USEMODULE += paho-mqtt-contrib