diff --git a/projects/poppler.freedesktop.org/package.yml b/projects/poppler.freedesktop.org/package.yml
index 1207fe454a..d1af0eb550 100644
--- a/projects/poppler.freedesktop.org/package.yml
+++ b/projects/poppler.freedesktop.org/package.yml
@@ -30,6 +30,10 @@ dependencies:
   curl.se: "*"
   freedesktop.org/fontconfig: ">=2.13"
   freetype.org: ">=2.10"
+  # since 26.09.0: find_soft_mandatory_package(ENABLE_HARFBUZZ harfbuzz "")
+  # in CMakeLists.txt, so configure hard-fails without it. No version floor
+  # upstream; found via CONFIG mode against lib/cmake/harfbuzz/.
+  harfbuzz.org: "*"
   gnome.org/glib: ">=2.64"
   gnome.org/libxml2: ~2.13 # since 25.4.0, 2.14 changed the API version
   libjpeg-turbo.org: "*"