diff --git a/pkgs/by-name/he/hello/package.nix b/pkgs/by-name/he/hello/package.nix
index 659899bd5f9b..d56423eea6cf 100644
--- a/pkgs/by-name/he/hello/package.nix
+++ b/pkgs/by-name/he/hello/package.nix
@@ -17,6 +17,13 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
     hash = "sha256-jZkUKv2SV28wsM18tCqNxoCZmLxdYH2Idh9RLibH2yA=";
   };
 
+  # The GNU Hello `configure` script detects how to link libiconv but fails to actually make use of that.
+  # Unfortunately, this cannot be a patch to `Makefile.am` because `autoreconfHook` causes a gettext
+  # infrastructure mismatch error when trying to build `hello`.
+  env = lib.optionalAttrs stdenv.hostPlatform.isDarwin {
+    NIX_LDFLAGS = "-liconv";
+  };
+
   doCheck = true;
 
   doInstallCheck = true;