diff --git a/meta/recipes-devtools/qemu/qemu.inc b/meta/recipes-devtools/qemu/qemu.inc
index d253529b3d..53f48375e4 100644
--- a/meta/recipes-devtools/qemu/qemu.inc
+++ b/meta/recipes-devtools/qemu/qemu.inc
@@ -35,6 +35,8 @@ SRC_URI = "https://download.qemu.org/${BPN}-${PV}.tar.xz \
            file://qemu-guest-agent.init \
            file://qemu-guest-agent.udev \
            "
+# file index at download.qemu.org isn't reliable: https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu-web/-/issues/9
+UPSTREAM_CHECK_URI = "https://www.qemu.org"
 UPSTREAM_CHECK_REGEX = "qemu-(?P<pver>\d+(\.\d+)+)\.tar"
 
 SRC_URI[sha256sum] = "f859f0bc65e1f533d040bbe8c92bcfecee5af2c921a6687c652fb44d089bd894"