diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/ghostscript/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/ghostscript/package.py
index 937b509166a3f150ee2af758e03a814965e70aa0..b090909a620e94d46f60156ced3ff6adcc9bd133 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/ghostscript/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/ghostscript/package.py
@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@ class Ghostscript(AutotoolsPackage):
     depends_on('libpng')
     depends_on('libtiff')
     depends_on('zlib')
+    depends_on('libxext')
 
     def url_for_version(self, version):
         baseurl = "https://github.com/ArtifexSoftware/ghostpdl-downloads/releases/download/gs{0}/ghostscript-{1}.tar.gz"