diff --git a/tests/mpu_stack_guard/main.c b/tests/mpu_stack_guard/main.c
index 04e33360a2..b656931147 100644
--- a/tests/mpu_stack_guard/main.c
+++ b/tests/mpu_stack_guard/main.c
@@ -22,6 +22,14 @@
 
 #include "cpu.h"
 #include "thread.h"
+#include "mpu.h"
+
+/* RIOT's MPU headers gracefully fail when no MPU is present.
+ * Use this to catch if RIOT's features are correctly gating MPU use.
+ */
+#if !__MPU_PRESENT
+#error "(!__MPU_PRESENT)"
+#endif
 
 #define CANARY_VALUE 0xdeadbeef