diff --git a/ui/gtk.c b/ui/gtk.c
index 01b821616e..58d20eed62 100644
--- a/ui/gtk.c
+++ b/ui/gtk.c
@@ -1748,7 +1748,7 @@ static GSList *gd_vc_vte_init(GtkDisplayState *s, VirtualConsole *vc,
     /* The documentation says that the default is UTF-8, but actually it is
      * 7-bit ASCII at least in VTE 0.38.
      */
-#if VTE_CHECK_VERSION(0, 40, 0)
+#if VTE_CHECK_VERSION(0, 38, 0)
     vte_terminal_set_encoding(VTE_TERMINAL(vc->vte.terminal), "UTF-8", NULL);
 #else
     vte_terminal_set_encoding(VTE_TERMINAL(vc->vte.terminal), "UTF-8");